


Hidden Treasure

by pinecontents



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Alternate Universe - Never Met, Coming Out, High School, Homophobia, M/M, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends, Strangers to lab partners, Summer Vacation, the new kid at school
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:07:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 37,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24782059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinecontents/pseuds/pinecontents
Summary: Why would someone enroll in a new school three months before graduation and steadfastly refuse to talk to anyone?Rhett doesn't know, but he really, really wants to find out.
Relationships: Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal
Comments: 213
Kudos: 172





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thanks to @sohox for her encouragement and support.

Rhett didn’t have senioritis, exactly. Yes, it was his senior year of high school, and yes, basketball season had already ended, and yes, he’d already been accepted to a few different colleges with some generous basketball scholarships. Everything was in place for his future. Even if he completely gave up for the remaining three month of the school year, he’d be in fine shape.

But as much as he hated to admit it, Rhett was his father’s son. Always do your best, always see your projects to the end. His mom was the same way (a main reason his parents’ marriage was as strong as it was, Rhett suspected), but it was his dad who had always encouraged and pushed him the most. Try harder, work longer, put in the most effort.

There was no force on earth, though, that would stop Rhett from putting his head down on his desk in his first hour class if traffic was on his side and he arrived a little early. Once the bell rang, he’d wake up, but every chance for a little extra sleep was precious, and expecting teenagers to be alert at 7:20am was stupid anyway.

He was nearly fifteen minutes early today. It was a Thursday in mid March, the kind of day where it would be warm in the sunlight but chilly as soon as a cloud passed in front of the sun, the kind of day that made you think of spring while reminding you that winter wasn’t _really_ over.

Rhett drifted in the liminal state between being awake and being asleep. He could hear things happening around him, the voices of his classmates, the thunk of textbooks being dropped on desks (Rhett was currently using his as a pillow), but none of it registered until the bell rang.

He sat up and rubbed his face groggily. The feeling of a beard under his fingers was still a little unfamiliar, but Rhett was experimenting to see if he could form a stronger chin with facial hair. It would probably work better once he was actually able to grow one.

“Alright!” Ms. Svoboda, the chemistry teacher, stood behind the counter and clapped her hands. “Let’s get this show on the--Derek! Take a seat, please.”

“There’s someone _in_ my seat,” Derek said. He was one of Rhett’s basketball teammates and always sat behind Rhett. They weren’t friends, exactly, but they’d known each other for a long time and they spent a lot of time together at practice. Rhett never hung out with him outside of school, though. Derek could be kind of an asshole.

“There aren’t any assigned seats here, Mr. Johnson,” Ms. Svoboda said. She was a pear shaped woman in her sixties, with a no nonsense haircut. Rhett knew she’d been around forever and there were rumors that twenty years ago, she’d ordered a troublemaking student into the hallway, slammed him into the lockers, and ordered him to _cut that shit out_. He didn’t know if it was true, but he could totally imagine her doing it. “There’s an open desk at the back.”

Rhett twisted around to see who was in Derek’s seat. There might be no official assigned seats, but everyone always sat in the same desks, so this was unusual.

To his surprise, it was a boy he’d never seen before. He was thin, with very short dark hair and light eyes, and wore rectangular glasses and a black hoodie. Derek stared down at him, and the new kid cringed away from him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered as he reached down to grab his bag.

“Mr. Johnson!” Ms. Svoboda clapped her hands again. “Everyone is waiting on you.” Derek scowled and stomped off to the seat at the back. The entire class stared at the new kid, who looked like he wanted the earth to swallow him up. Rhett felt sorry for him.

“Okay, now that everyone is seated, let’s get back to stoichiometry,” Ms. Svoboda said. “We’re going to go over chapter seven, so please open your books.” Rhett was intensely curious about the boy behind him, but he tried to focus on the chemistry lesson. There were probably enough people staring at the new kid. He didn’t need Rhett gawking at him, too.

When the bell rang, the dark haired boy stayed seated as everyone, including Rhett, filed out.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Rhett!” Amanda B exclaimed as she threw herself into the seat across from him. “Who the fuck changes schools three months before graduation?”

“Get your own goddamn fries,” Rhett said as he slid his tray away from her grasping fingers. “I dunno why you’d do that instead of just getting a GED.”

Amanda B managed to grab a fry. “I know, right?” She stuffed it in her mouth. “He’s from LA. I’m surprised, he doesn’t look cool enough.”

“How do you know that?” Rhett asked as he ate a few fries himself. They kind of limp and mushy, so he didn’t protest when Amanda B reached over and helped herself to some more. If she made a move on his chicken strips, though, there was going to be trouble.

“Showalter asked him when she was signing his schedule,” Amanda B said. She liked knowing everything about everybody.

“That’s a big change.” Rhett thought about how overwhelmed he’d be if he moved from rural North Carolina to LA. The new kid was probably going through some serious culture shock.

“Yeah. His name is Charles, but he has a nickname. I didn’t hear what it was, though.” Amanda B pointed at Rhett’s last chicken strip. “Can I have half of that?”

He smacked her hand away and threw a cold, undercooked fry at her.


	2. Chapter 2

Rhett watched the new kid a lot. There was something about him that was absolutely fascinating.

Part of it, of course, was that he was new and therefore had a lot of novelty factor. Central wasn’t a large school, and Rhett had known most everyone in his graduating class for years. Amanda B and Derek had both been in his kindergarten class. The most recent addition was probably Amanda M, who’d joined them sophomore year.

The new kid didn’t talk very much. If someone spoke to him, sometimes he’d answer in monosyllables, sometimes he’d just shrug. It quickly became clear to everyone that he just wanted to finish out the year, graduate, and never interact with any of them again. He sat in the back of every classroom and slipped easily through the crowds in the hallway to vanish outside as soon as the final bell rang.

Rhett learned a few things about him over the next couple weeks. He went by Link (no one knew where the nickname came from, though), he got picked up by someone in an ancient pickup truck after school, and he read on a Kindle a lot. That was about it, though. Link very much kept to himself.

He also dressed in an extremely generic way. Jeans, tshirts, hoodies, and sneakers, like almost everyone else at Central, but even there, Link didn’t _quite_ fit in. His jeans were tight in a way that no one else’s were, the fabric of his hoodie was obviously not a cheap poly/cotton blend, and his sneakers weren’t from any brand Rhett had ever heard of.

In short, Link looked like he didn’t shop at WalMart.

He looked good, too. Amanda B described him as “dreamy” and Amanda M said, “I’ve never seen anyone with eyes that blue!” Rhett rolled his (green) eyes as they complained that Link was completely uninterested in any of the girls, despite their best efforts, and speculated that maybe he was gay? The Amandas didn’t appreciate it when Rhett pointed out that Link wasn’t interested in _anyone_.

“I mean, even you have to admit he’s good looking,” Amanda M said. Amanda B snuck a carrot stick off her tray.

“I guess?” Rhett held up his hands in a shrug. Link was handsome enough, he supposed. 

At the very least, he had a chin.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It took about three weeks for Link to fade into the background. The girls abandoned their futile efforts and the teachers gave up trying to get him to participate in class discussions.

Rhett didn’t forget about him, though. He never tried to talk to Link. Why bother, when he simply wouldn’t engage? Instead, Rhett would watch him out of the corner of his eye, or, if he thought he could get away from it, straight on.

The Amandas were right. Link was good looking, even as solemn and withdrawn as he was. Rhett never caught him smiling, even when he was deep in a book instead of paying attention in class. It was like he was totally committed to just barely attending in every way.

One day, Rhett noticed that Link had a ring on his right middle finger. It was the only thing about his outfit that wasn’t deliberately generic, so Rhett squinted his eyes and leaned over a little to try and get a better look. Link was two rows over from him, so he didn’t get a great look, but it looked like a fairly thick gold ring.

Rhett was desperate to know more about him, but Link didn’t talk to anyone, so there wasn’t anything he was going to get from a third party.

He was going to have to talk to Link himself.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*

“Alright, you all have your instructions, so it’s time to assign partners. There’s finally an even number of students, so no teams of three this time.” Ms. Svoboda gave the vintage bingo cage on her counter a spin. Wooden balls bounced inside. Each number coordinated with a student. 

Everyone hated the bingo cage.

“Charmaine and…” Ms. Svoboda consulted her bingo sheet. “Amanda M.” She gave the cage another crank.

Rhett stared out the window and spaced out. There were finally enough leaves that the trees didn’t look bare anymore, and there had been a few days that had been truly warm. Maybe the weather would be nice enough this weekend that he could ride his bike to the river, even if it was too early to swim or fish.

“...and Rhett.” 

Rhett looked back at the sound of his name. He’d completely missed who his lab partner was, so he twisted around and whispered to Derek. “Who’d she say?”

“Link.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Rhett turned back around and stared down at his titration lab instructions without seeing them. _Link_. A lab project was the perfect excuse to talk to him. 

So why did Rhett suddenly feel so nervous?

He wasn’t sure why Link still fascinated him so much, when everyone else seemed to have mostly lost interest in him. It might have been because he was new, or it might have been because he was almost _alien_ , with his not-quite-generic-enough clothes and his growing-out-from-a-buzzcut hair. Rhett had a strong suspicion that Link had a much more interesting wardrobe hidden somewhere. He was from LA, right?

“Okay, that’s everyone. You should have enough time to finish taking measurements by the end of class, and then tomorrow you can do the calculations.” Ms. Svoboda began packing the wooden balls back into the cage and the class filtered to the lab benches at the back of the classroom. Link made an immediate beeline to the furthest bench in the back, and Rhett walked over to join him.

“Hi,” Link said quietly. He chewed his lip nervously and shifted his weight from foot to foot. _He’s scared of me_ , Rhett realized suddenly. The thought made his heart sink a little. It wasn’t the first time he’d made someone nervous. Rhett was so tall and imposing that even though he did his best to be gentle and soft-spoken, some people could never relax around him.

Rhett didn’t want Link to be one of those people, but he wasn’t sure how to handle the situation. He figured he couldn’t go wrong with being polite, so he held out his hand like he was meeting one of his dad’s friends. “Hi. I’m Rhett.”

Link looked at his hand and then flicked his eyes up to meet Rhett’s for a brief moment. There was a pause, and then he gingerly shook Rhett’s hand once. “Link.”

His fingers were long and delicate, his palm cool and dry. Link didn’t have a firm handshake, but he wasn’t a limp fish, either. He shook hands like someone crossing an item off a to-do list.

Link retreated back a few steps and turned back to the workbench. “I’ve done this lab before, but it’s been a couple years,” he said, running a finger down the instructions.

That was probably the most Link had said to anyone at Central in the entire time he’d been there. Rhett studied him as he made notes on the instruction sheet. Link had on his skinny jeans, black sneakers, and a plain sky blue tshirt. His glasses slid down his nose a little, and he absently shoved them up with a knuckle. 

“You’ve taken chem before?” Rhett asked as he tried to get a closer look at Link’s ring. It was a signet ring, a band with a flattened rectangle engraved with something he couldn’t read. It was worn and battered and honestly looked more like something an old man would wear.

“Yeah, in tenth grade. I don’t really remember it,” Link admitted as he looked up from the instruction sheet. “Sorry. I’ve been taking physics.”

Rhett shrugged as he positioned the burette and the flask into place. “It’s fine, we’ll figure it out. Why’d you move, anyway?” He wouldn’t have asked out of nowhere, but Link bringing up his previous schooling gave him an opening.

“Family stuff.” Link’s tone and body language very clearly said _That is all I am going to say_ , so Rhett dropped the subject. There was a very tentative connection forming and he didn’t want to mess it up, so he stuck to chemistry for the rest of the class period.

Link was a good lab partner. He was careful and attentive and recorded everything in wobbly, loopy script in his notebook as Rhett ever so carefully dripped the base into the acid. Link had quietly asked Rhett to do that part, holding out his hand so Rhett could see how it shook. “I can’t do it precisely enough,” he said.

They finished with ten minutes to clean up. Link closed his notebook with a satisfied slap and said, “I remember a little more now.”

“Awesome.” Rhett turned to Link and grinned at him as he headed to the sink with the glassware. He wasn’t looking where he was going and smashed the burette into the faucet, shattering it in his hand. Rhett let out a strangled yelp and yanked his hand back. Most of the glass had fallen into the sink, but one shard had sliced his palm from the base of his thumb nearly to his wrist. “Fuck,” Rhett muttered as he carefully pulled the bloody shard out. “Uh, Ms. Svoboda?”

Link made an unhappy little noise. Rhett glanced at him as he ran water over his injured hand. “Dude, are you okay?” Link’s face was ashen and he gripped the edge of the counter tightly.

“I’m not good with bloo--” Link’s eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed onto the worn and stained linoleum, catching the side of his head on the counter on his way down.

“Fuck!” Rhett grabbed a wad of paper towels and yelled across the room. “Ms. Svobodaaaa!”


	3. Chapter 3

The school nurse drove both of them to the hospital in her minivan. Rhett sat in the front, his hand wrapped in gauze and tape. Link sat behind him, holding an ice pack to his right temple.

“Rhett, your mom is going to meet us there,” the nurse said, “and Charles, I called your dad but I had to leave a message.”

“He won’t… you need to call my grandpa,” Link said. Rhett twisted around in his seat to look at him. Link had a bit of a guarded expression on his face, underneath the pain and embarrassment.

“Alright,” the nurse said cheerfully. She got them checked in at the hospital, and Rhett’s mom arrived and made a huge fuss over him. Rhett thought he might die of embarrassment--was there anything less cool than being fussed over by your mom in public?--but then she caught sight of Link, and made a fuss over him, too.

The expression on Link’s face as he looked frantically to Rhett for help was enough to double Rhett over in silent giggles.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Rhett ended up getting three stitches. Link was still being seen when he was released, so Rhett had to leave without saying goodbye. His mom insisted on taking him for ice cream on the way home, as if he were eight instead of eighteen, but Rhett was never one to turn down food.

He wondered if whoever picked Link up (his grandpa?) would take him for ice cream on his way home.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Rhett’s car was still in the school parking lot, so his dad gave him a ride the next morning. This made him very, very early, but instead of heading into the classroom to doze on his desk, he sat against the lockers next to the door and waited for Link.

He thought about their interaction yesterday, before his glassware mishap. Link hadn’t been friendly or outgoing, exactly, but he’d given Rhett more interaction than the bare minimum he gave everyone else.

Did that mean anything? Rhett was aware, in a vague, sleepy sense, that he really, really wanted… something… from Link. Acknowledgement? Friendship? Some of the secret coolness that he was sure Link had (he had to, he was from LA!) to rub off on him somehow?

Someone kicked his ankle. “Why are you asleep in the hall?” Amanda M asked. “You look like a bum.” 

Rhett lifted his foot and shoved her away. “Fuck off,” he mumbled.

“Nah.” Amanda M dodged his leg and leaned over. “Lemme see your hand.”

Rhett held it out. There was nothing to see; the cut was completely covered in white gauze. “Three stitches.”

“Nice. What about Link?”

“I dunno. I was waiting for him to show up so I could ask him.” Rhett groggily stood up. Link probably wouldn’t talk to him if Amanda M was hanging around, so he might as well go into the classroom. 

No one sat in their usual seats during lab day. The desks were all dragged out of their usual rows and paired off so pairs could work together. Rhett went to the back row to Link’s usual seat and took the seat next to it. He settled in and put his head down on the desk.

A few minutes later, he heard someone slip into the seat next to him. Rhett opened one eye and peered over at Link from over his arm. Link had a navy beanie pulled down over his forehead. Rhett lifted his head. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Link said, as quietly as ever. He had his notebook open on his desk. “How’s your hand?”

“It’s fine.” Rhett held it up to show him the bandage. “I got three stitches, but it doesn’t hurt or anything. What about you?” He gestured towards Link’s hidden forehead. “Concussion?”

Link shook his head and pulled up the edge of his hat. There was a swollen lump above the end of his right eyebrow. “Just a hematoma.”

“That’s a goose egg!” Rhett said.

Link huffed a breath out of his nose in what might have been a laugh. “That’s what my grandpa called it.”

The bell rang and they started to slog through the calculations from the measurements they made yesterday. Ms. Svoboda walked from pair to pair, checking to see how everyone was doing. When she reached Link and Rhett, the first thing she did was fuss over them. Rhett smiled to himself at Link’s mildly panicked expression. He obviously had no idea how to react.

Once Ms. Svoboda was assured that they were fine, really, she spent a while going over the stoichiometry calculations with Link. Rhett was secretly relieved, because he hadn’t been sure he’d be able to get Link through it, but Link surprised both of them by saying that he’d watched a few videos about it last night.

“I didn’t want to be a burden,” Link said when Rhett asked him about it after Ms. Svoboda left. He fiddled nervously with his pen.

“Well, I appreciate that, but like…” Rhett held up a hand. “There’s two months left, you know? That’s more effort than I’d be putting in.” It wasn’t like Link seemed to be putting much effort into his other classes, either.

Link looked down at his notebook and licked his lips. “I just wanna get through this,” he said, quiet as ever. Rhett wasn’t sure if _this_ referred to the lab, the conversation with Rhett, or the school year, but he dropped the subject.

They worked quietly on their calculations for a while. Rhett’s eye kept getting caught by Link’s ring. He could get a better look at it now that they were sitting close together (there were some other things he noticed while sitting close to Link, but he’d have to deal with those later, preferably in private). The engraving was worn and intricate, but he thought it said _EB_.

“What does EB stand for?” he asked.

Link looked up. “Hmm?”

“On your ring.” Rhett gestured to it.

“Oh.” Link held out his hand and looked at it. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t _know_?” This was very intriguing. “Did your grandpa give it to you?”

That got a genuine little snort of laughter out of Link, which sent a little thrill through Rhett. “No, I found it at the beach.”

“Like, just lying in the sand?” Rhett was suddenly jealous. He wanted to go to the beach and find treasure, too. 

“Yep.”

“Man, I thought it was awesome when I found action figure buried in the dirt at the park,” Rhett said, “but that’s the coolest fucking thing I ever heard.”

“Yeah, it was pretty great.” Link smiled, just a tiny bit, and Rhett’s stomach filled with butterflies.


	4. Chapter 4

“Hi, sweetie. How was school?” Rhett’s mom asked as he came into the kitchen where she had the makings for meatloaf and mashed potatoes spread out all over the counters. Usually, she’d rope Rhett into helping, but he couldn’t peel potatoes with his bandaged hand, so he sat at the table instead.

“It was fine. Amanda M said her dad’s buying her a car for graduation and she wants to go on a road trip over the summer.” Rhett already knew what his mom’s response would be, and she was shaking her head before he even finished speaking. He bit down a smile and tried to keep his face neutral as she launched into a predictable lecture.

“No, Rhett, absolutely not. Your dad had to pull some strings to get you that position and you’re not going to--” she looked up from her mixing bowl at him. “Are you laughing at me, mister?”

“Yeah, ‘cause I told her I couldn’t go because I got a summer job! I knew you’d jump to conclusions.” He grinned and ducked as his mom pretended to throw a potato at him. “You’re so predictable, Mama.”

“Rhett James… do not push your luck.” She put the potato back down on the counter. “The boy who was at the hospital yesterday--what’s his name?”

“Link.” Just saying his name gave Rhett a warm spark deep in his belly.

“Was he back at school today?”

“Yeah, he was fine. He just had a lump.” Rhett circled his thumb and finger and put them on his forehead where Link’s goose egg was. “No concussion or anything.”

“Well, he seemed like a nice boy.” She cracked an egg into the mixing bowl. “I don’t think I’ve seen him around before.”

“No, he’s new.” Rhett found himself telling his mom everything he knew about Link, which wasn’t much, and ended with, “I think we might end up being friends.”

“Well, there’s not much time left in the school year, but maybe he’ll be around for the summer,” Rhett’s mom said.

“Maybe.” Rhett remembered Link saying _I just wanna get through this_ and thought _maybe not_.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“You know what his problem is?” Amanda B asked.

“What?” Amanda M asked. She and Amanda B were sitting across from Rhett, sharing a plate of tater tots and doing their obnoxious Amanda double act. Before Amanda M had started attending Central, Amanda B and Rhett had had a much closer friendship. He was still pretty miffed about having to share his friend, and still felt a little abandoned and betrayed. Rhett was also pretty sure this conversation was about to piss him off.

Amanda B pointed a tater tot at Rhett and looked at Amanda M. “He set up a whole relationship in his head and got butthurt when it didn’t work out the same way in real life.”

Amanda M nodded and popped a tater tot in her mouth. “Just like when he dated Emma Rose last year.”

“What a disaster.” Amanda B rolled her eyes.

“Fuck you,” Rhett mumbled. He was so sick of the Amandas. They weren’t wrong, exactly, but they were entirely unsympathetic and just plain rude. He didn’t even know why he spent time with them. Some kind of sunk cost fallacy, maybe. He’d been friends with Amanda B for so long that it seemed like a shame to abandon their friendship after all this time.

It probably wouldn’t survive after graduation, though.

It had been a week since his chem lab with Link. The tentative connection Rhett had felt just… evaporated. The next day, after the reports had been handed in and they were back in their usual seats, Link had reverted to his usual monosyllabic answers, shrugs, and silence. He slipped through the halls, turning his thin shoulders to duck through the crowd, and vanished before Rhett could catch him.

It hurt, more than Rhett would have expected. He really had imagined sparking up a friendship with Link, spending time together and getting to know each other. He wanted to find out if Link was as interesting and clever as Rhett suspected he was.

There was something else, too, that Rhett still hadn’t really figured out. He’d always been into tall girls with dark hair--the aforementioned Emma Rose was only ten inches shorter than Rhett (“only”) and had a sleek, dark ponytail that swished while she walked. Rhett had thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world. He still kind of did, even though it turned out they had very, very different ideas about who should do what in a relationship (Rhett thought they should be equal partners, Emma Rose thought that he should, quote, “treat her like a queen”, but she didn’t want to treat him like a king).

Link was tall. Link had dark hair. His hands were shaky, but he was graceful as he dodged other students in the hall. The tiny glimpse of a smile that Rhett had seen made him want to see more, to see Link smile for real, to be the one who made him laugh. If Link had been a girl, Rhett would have been figuring out a way to ask him out.

But Link was a guy. It was confusing. Rhett had spent a lot of time thinking about it, and a lot of time reading things on the internet, but he was still lost.

He couldn’t deal with it now, though. The Amandas were gossiping about someone else, and Rhett couldn’t take it anymore. He shoved his tray across the table. “Here, you guys can have the rest of my tots.”

“Thanks,” Amanda B said absently. Neither Amanda noticed as Rhett slunk out of the cafeteria.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The school year couldn’t end quickly enough for Rhett. The freedom of summer was so close he could taste it. His job (filing and scanning papers at his dad’s friend’s dental office) was only Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so Rhett would have plenty of time to himself. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but a lot of doing nothing sounded great.

There was a little under a month left. Everyone’s final projects were starting to wrap up and Rhett’s last English and psychology papers were both going well. The relief he felt at the thought of graduating and leaving Central behind was almost more than he could articulate.

Rhett hadn’t severed ties with the Amandas yet. It would have been far more drama than it was worth, so he continued sitting with them at lunch and listening to their gossip and snark. After graduation, they’d go on their road trip and he’d go to his job and that, he assumed, would be that.

Link was still around, avoiding everyone as much as possible. Rhett wasn’t sure, but he thought Link was avoiding him even more than everyone else. Whenever Rhett was near him in the hall, Link seemed to vanish extra quickly.

He assumed Link would vanish after graduation, too.


	5. Chapter 5

Rhett had been wanting to get away to the river for weeks now, but between the weather and family obligations, he hadn’t been able to. Finally, he had a free Saturday, on a sunny day in early May, and he wanted to take some time and relax by himself.

He loved the river. Rhett’s dad used to take him fishing, but that had happened less and less as Rhett got older and busier. Rhett still brought his fishing rod, but he almost never fished, preferring to just sit on the bank and soak it in.

It probably wasn’t quite warm enough to go swimming, at least this early in the year, but Rhett wore his trunks anyway. They were blue with little red birds on them, and he had on a red t-shirt to match. He had some snacks and drinks in the basket of his bike. It was shaping up to be a pretty nice day.

Rhett leaned his bike up against a tree and made his way down to the bank. The water level was extremely low--they were in the third year of a drought--and his usual spot was far from the water. He settled in anyway.

Usually, there were a few other fishermen around, but the drought kept most of them away. There was only one other person visible, far enough downstream and around enough of a curve that Rhett could barely see them. He could just catch glimpses of a white shirt behind the foliage.

Rhett got comfortable and zoned out. The rustle of leaves and the babble of water soothed him in a way that nothing else could. Wherever he ended up moving to after college (because he sure as hell wasn’t going to stick around here), he’d have to find a river there, too.

After a while--Rhett wasn’t sure how long, because he’d completely lost track of time--he heard steps crunching on the gravel. The person from downstream was headed back to the trail. Rhett opened his eyes and lifted his head to acknowledge them. His eyebrows shot up when he saw who it was.

Link stared back at him. “Um, hi,” he said. He wore a white t-shirt with a Keith Haring design of a UFO and a pyramid on it, a pair of his tight jeans cut off above the knee, and purple lowtop sneakers. His dark hair was covered by a green snapback and his eyes were covered by blue mirror sunglasses. _I_ knew _he had cooler clothes_ , Rhett thought.

He had a lot of equipment, as well. Link had a pair of headphone slung around his neck, a fanny pack/tool belt with some objects Rhett couldn’t identify hanging from it, and what looked like a forearm crutch with a flat circle at the end and a box with dials and an LED readout by the handle.

“Hi.” Rhett sat up, trying to ignore his heart beating. “Is that a metal detector?”

Link looked down at it. “Yeah.”

“Did you find anything cool?” Rhett asked.

“Um.” Link chewed on his lip. He seemed to be thinking, so Rhett waited patiently. Link seemed to come to a decision. “Yeah.”

“Can I see?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh man,” Rhett said. “You want a Coke? It’s cold, I have a cooler.”

“Sure.” Link set his metal detector down and got comfortable as Rhett fetched the soda. He had his utility belt and wet shoes off by the time Rhett got back.

“What is all the stuff?” Rhett asked as he handed over a can.

Link opened his soda and took a gulp. He pointed to each tool. “Digging tool--like a trowel but it’s got a saw edge so you can cut through roots, a scoop I made out of an old flour sifter so it drains sand and water, and a pinpointer.” The pinpointer was bright orange and shaped like a curling iron. “It’s a little handheld metal detector that vibrates more the closer you get to something.”

“Oh wow.” Rhett very badly wanted to try the metal detector out, but that seemed too forward. “You’re serious.”

“Yeah.” Link unzipped the fanny pack and pulled a few small items out. “Mostly I found pull tabs from old beer cans, but I found these, too.” He handed them over to Rhett.

There was a flat piece of metal shaped like a simplistic fish, a rusty pocket knife with an antler handle, a little toy gun, and two keys on a plastic rabbit keychain. 

“Link, this is so _cool_.” Rhett tried to open the pocket knife, but it was rusted shut. “How’d you get into this?”

“I spent a lot of time at the beach at home,” Link said. “There were some older guys who always walked around with metal detectors, and one day I asked if I could try. They thought it was great that a kid liked it, so they helped me get set up.”

“I wanna try!” Rhett blurted.

“Okay, but give me a couple minutes.” Link took another swallow of soda.

“Sure.” Rhett felt like his heart might beat out of his chest. Link was still guarded, still a little withdrawn, but he was talking to Rhett. And more than that, he was being _friendly_. Maybe it was school that made him keep to himself.

They spent an hour and a half messing around with the metal detector. Link showed Rhett how to sweep it evenly above the ground, and Rhett was astonished to learn that it could tell what type of metal it was detecting. He found lots of little pieces of trash that Link insisted Rhett take with him to throw away, and a 1972 quarter. 

Even if he hadn’t found anything, Rhett still would have been thrilled, simply because Link was spending time with him.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“You’ve been gone a long time,” Rhett’s mom said as he came in the back door.

“Remember the kid who was at the hospital with me?” Rhett asked as he grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl.

“Of course.”

“He was the river with a metal detector, and he let me use it. I found a quarter!” He was far prouder of that than he should have been.

“Sounds like you had a nice time,” she said. “Now go wash up so we can go buy you something nice to wear for graduation.

“I’m gonna be wearing a gown over it, who cares?” Rhett complained, but he went to take a shower anyway. He loved his mom, and shopping for a dress shirt wasn’t _that_ bad. She’d probably buy him some fun clothes, too.


	6. Chapter 6

Link still wouldn’t really talk to Rhett at school, but at least he stopped running away from him. Rhett had been a little hurt at first on Monday when Link didn’t acknowledge him, but they happened to reach the classroom at the same time on Tuesday morning.

“Are you going to the river Saturday?” Link murmured as he came up next to Rhett.

“Um, I wasn’t planning to, but I can,” Rhett answered, surprised and pleased. 

“You should.” With that, Link vanished to his seat at the back of the room.

Rhett spent the rest of the week wound up with anticipation. He tried to hide it from the Amandas, which wasn’t hard because they were far more interested in talking about the party they were throwing graduation night. They’d been on about it for weeks.

“You’re coming, right Rhett?” Amanda M asked. The party was going to be at her dad’s house.

“Yeah.” Rhett took a bite of his banana. He’d decided that for the rest of the year, he wasn’t going to order any food that Amanda B could snag if he could help it. She’d taken his pizza crust today, but that was fine because she had to wait for him to be finished, and he didn’t actually want it. “I mean, I’m invited, right?”

Amanda B rolled her eyes. “Of course you’re invited, Rhett. _Everyone’s_ invited. Even Charmaine.” She and Charmaine had never gotten along.

“Even Link,” Amanda M added. “Not that he’s bothered to make any friends.”

Rhett didn’t correct her, partially because he wouldn’t really say that he and Link were friends yet, but mostly because the Amandas had stopped teasing him about wanting Link to be his friend.

Three more weeks.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They hadn’t set a time to meet at the river on Saturday, so Rhett didn’t worry when he showed up and Link was nowhere to be seen. Sure enough, twenty minutes later, Link arrived on a battered old bicycle with his metal detecting gear in a milk crate bungeed behind the seat. Rhett greeted him with a lazy wave. “Hey.”

“Hi.” Link unpacked his gear and wheeled his bike into the brush until it was too deep to be seen. Rhett’s bike was propped up against a tree on the side of the trail, as usual.

“Why’d you hide your bike?” Rhett asked.

“My grandpa didn’t have a bike lock,” Link said as he sat next to Rhett. “Who doesn’t have a bike lock?”

“Uh, me? Who’s gonna take it?” Rhett gestured at a couple old men upstream on the other side of the river. “Those guys?”

Link’s brow furrowed minutely and he sighed. “I don’t understand this place. I mean, I lived here until I was five, but I don’t really remember it.”

“Really?” Rhett said in surprise.

“Yeah, my mom got a job as Director of Nursing at a big hospital out there, so we moved. I was supposed to come back and spend the summers with my dad, but I never did.” Link shrugged.

“Oh.” Rhett wondered why Link moved back. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Is it about my family?”

“No.”

Link looked surprised, like he’d thought that would be the only thing Rhett would be interested. “In that case, yeah.”

“It’s a two parter, I guess,” Rhett said. “Why’d you ask me to hang out, when you won’t even talk to anyone else?”

“It’s…” Link plucked a grass stem from in front of him and began twisting it around his fingers. “I’m not going to be here for very long, and I didn’t want to grow any roots, y’know? Can’t miss friends you never made.”

“Okay, but…” Rhett gestured back and forth between them.

“It’s lonely,” Link said simply. “You were nice to me during chem, but your friends suck.”

“The Amandas?” That wasn’t a surprise. Rhett didn’t disagree.

“Yeah.”

“They do suck,” Rhett said.

“Then why do you hang out with them?” Link threw away his shredded grass stem and pulled up another.

Rhett made a face. “Amanda B was my best friend until Amanda M showed up in tenth grade. She used to be a lot nicer.”

Link stared down at the grass for a few moments. “I overheard them talking. The one with the dyed red hair--”

“That’s Amanda B.” Her real hair color was blonde, a little lighter than Rhett’s, but she’d started dying it a year ago.

“Yeah. She said I was stuck up and thought I was better than everyone, and the other one said I was probably a school shooter and had to move because I got expelled.” There was another little pause and he looked up at Rhett. “None of that is true, by the way.”

“I figured.” Rhett dropped his head into his hands. “I’m sorry. I don’t like them, either. I’m just waiting to graduate so I can ghost them. I would have done it already, but, you know, drama.”

“Yeah. Anyway, I didn’t want to be your friend, but it was nice to talk to someone who isn’t my grandpa, so here we are.” Link gestured to the scene around him and changed the subject. “Wanna see what we can find?”

“Absolutely.” Rhett got to his feet and picked up the metal detector. Link took the utility belt for himself, and they spent the next two hours wading around the shallow water.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“You know,” Rhett said after they’d been sloshing around for an hour. “I’ve never seen anyone wear skinny jorts before.” 

A little laugh burst out of Link. Rhett’s heart skipped a beat. Maybe this was the real Link? “Skinny jorts!”

“Why don’t you wear stuff like that at school?” Rhett asked, pointing the pinpointer at Link’s shirt. It was a pink, short sleeve button up covered in little red triangles. It seemed like an odd thing to wear for an outdoor activity, but Link looked really good in it. He looked good in everything, Rhett thought.

Link smoothed down the front of his shirt. “I didn’t know what people would be like here, how open minded they’d be, so I dressed neutral at first. It was easy and it worked, so I’m just going with it.”

“‘Worked’?” Rhett asked.

“At helping people ignore me,” Link said.

Rhett watched a leaf float past them. “I’m sorry. I wish things were easier for you.”

Link raised his eyebrows. “I’m actively making choices here, Rhett. It’s only for three more weeks, anyway.”

“What are you doing for the summer?” Rhett asked, thinking _Please say you’ll be here_. “I got a paperwork job at a dentist office.”

“Nothin’,” Link answered. “Maybe I’ll try to get a job. Just waiting for college to start, mostly.”

 _He’ll be here!_ “Where are you going?”

“NC State. It wasn’t my first choice, but they gave me a full ride, so…”

 _We’re going to the same school_! This was getting better and better. “Me too!”

Link smiled, and Rhett’s heart melted. “That’s cool,” he said.

Rhett looked at--admired, really--Link as he leaned over and poked around under the water with the pinpointer. His hair, which looked black under the fluorescents at school, was brown and shiny in the sun. The dark hair on his long legs was slicked down with water, which highlighted how thin and shapely they were. A little strip of skin was revealed on his lower back as his shirt got hiked up.

Link was one of those people to whom puberty had been kind, unlike Rhett. Rhett had always been tall, but now he was _gangly_. He was all arms and legs and knees and elbows, and had a horrible time finding clothes that fit. His face was gangly, too. The beard hadn’t helped much with that yet.

It didn’t seem fair that Link should be so attractive while Rhett was so awkward.

 _At least I have a better haircut_ , Rhett thought.


	7. Chapter 7

The unspoken understanding that Link would hang out with him over the summer made the last few weeks of school much more bearable for Rhett. The teachers had mostly given up trying to get any learning done, now that finals had been taken and projects had been handed in. They watched movies in some classes, played games in others (Ms. Svoboda used her bingo cage for actual bingo games), and overall did nothing.

“You’re going to Amanda M’s party, right?” Derek asked Rhett one day in French (Link took Spanish, which was much more useful in LA). The French dub of _Finding Dory_ played at the front of the room.

“Yeah, why?”

Derek shrugged. “Just curious. You’re not much of a partier.”

That was true. Bad movie night was more Rhett’s speed. “It’s kind of a special occasion, though,” Rhett said.

“Yeah, that’s true.” Derek, who was a partier, went on to tell Rhett how excited he was that he got accepted at a party school and his plans to join the most notorious party frat. Rhett made a silent bet with himself that Derek would drop out no later than the first semester of his sophomore year if he didn’t change his tune.

~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~

“Are you gonna go to Amanda M’s party?” Rhett asked. He was up to his knees in the river, digging around in the sandy bottom with the pinpointer and Link’s flour sifter. Whatever caused the signal was eluding him, and he would have given up, except the readout on the metal detector said it was silver.

Link sat on the bank with the metal detector across his legs. He sucked in a long breath and blew it out. “Well, on one hand, I’ve spent the last three months conciously avoiding socializing, but on the other hand, I haven’t gotten drunk or high since I left LA. So it’s tempting.”

“When did you leave LA?” Rhett flung a cupful of silty sand away from him and scooped up another.

“Beginning of February.”

That was about a month before he started at Central. Before he could begin wondering what Link had been up to during that time, Rhett realized that the pinpointer wasn’t giving him a signal in the sand anymore. He had whatever it was in the flour sifter. “I got it!”

“Here, bring it up here,” Link said. Rhett splashed up onto the bank and dumped the flour sifter out in front of Link. He ran his fingers through the sand and grabbed a small, flat object. “It’s… a dime?” Rhett frowned and held it up. “No… I don’t know what it is.”

“Lemme see.” Link took the coin and wiped it off on his skinny jorts. “Oh, it’s a Mercury dime. That’s what they made before Roosevelt dimes.” He handed it back to Rhett. “Congrats. You found your first silver.”

“Wow.” Rhett turned the coin over in his hand. The heads side showed a figure in a winged cap, and the tails a bundle of rods and an olive branch. It was dated 1936. “This is so _cool_.”

“Yep.” Link grinned and lay back on the grass. He’d been opening up more and more each time they hung out, and every time he smiled at Rhett, Rhett grinned back like an idiot. He couldn’t help it. “People here _do_ smoke weed, right?”

Rhett snorted. “Do you honestly think there’s a place they _don’t_?”

Link laughed. “I dunno, maybe one of those places in Alaska that you can only reach by dog sled.” He sighed. “No, I’m not gonna go. You are, though, right?”

“Well, yeah. It’s the last time we’re all gonna be together, you know?” Rhett stretched out on the grass.

“Mmm.”

“‘Mmm’?” Rhett looked over at him. “What does ‘mmm’ mean?”

Link looked up at the sky through the tree leaves above him, but Rhett could see his eyes flick over under his blue sunglasses. “It means, I don’t know you very well, but I know you don’t really like the Amandas. And you don’t seem like the most social guy, either. You kind of act like you just want to leave this all behind.”

“Huh.” Rhett stared up at the waving branches. He got along with most of his classmates--he was funny, athletic, and easygoing--but after graduation, he knew he wouldn’t keep in touch with most of them beyond passive Facebook friendship. Even then, he’d probably unfriend a lot of them pretty quickly. The only really close friend he’d ever had was Amanda B, and those days were gone.

Lots of people liked Rhett, but nobody loved him.

“I just think I’d regret it if I didn’t go,” he said finally. 

“‘Kay. Can I have a Coke?” Link asked.

“Sure.” He could have anything he wanted, as far as Rhett was concerned.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Yearbooks were distributed the following Monday. Link wasn’t in it at all, even on the list of students who weren’t pictured. Rhett guessed he was probably pretty pleased with that, given his goal of passing through without leaving any traces.

Nobody did anything productive for the rest of the week until Thursday, when the seniors gathered in the auditorium and practiced lining up in alphabetical order and crossing the stage.

“God, this is lame,” Amanda M complained to Rhett. The M stood for McMartin, so they’d been alphabet neighbors since she came to Central. Link was three places down, behind the Nathanson twins, looking bored.

“You’re not excited about graduation?” Rhett asked.

Amanda M rolled her eyes. “I’m excited to be _graduated_. The actual ceremony is bullshit.” She turned to Aaron Nathanson. “Right, Aaron?”

“Well, _I’m_ excited,” Rhett said under his breath. He glanced to his right, past Amanda M and the Nathansons, and found that Link was looking over at him. Link smiled, just the tiniest bit, and _winked_ at Rhett. Then he turned to face the front of the auditorium, the little smile still on his face, as Rhett stared at him in open mouthed astonishment.

Amanda M and the Nathansons didn’t notice a thing.


	8. Chapter 8

It turned out that Amanda M was mostly right about the ceremony being boring. A speech from the vice principal, a speech from the valedictorian, a speech by a guest that Rhett had never heard of before. The school band played The Star Spangled Banner at the start of the ceremony, and Pomp and Circumstance as the seniors were called up.

_Rachel Marie Lynch_

_Rhett James McLaughlin_

_Amanda Renee McMartin_

_Aaron Thomas Nathanson_

_Taylor Morgan Nathanson_

_Charles Lincoln Neal the Third_

Rhett took the scroll in his left hand, shook the principal’s hand with his right, and flipped the tassel on his mortarboard as he walked off the stage. Thirteen years of school led up to that moment, and it probably took no more than thirteen seconds to get through it.

As Rhett sat back down in his seat, he looked over at Amanda M and saw that she had a big grin on her face. “Thought you said this was stupid,” he whispered to her.

She whacked him with her scroll and laughed. “Shut up.” Rhett whacked her back and they both burst into giggles.

On the other side of the Nathanson twins, Link sat with his head down, rolling his scroll between his palms.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Amanda M’s party wasn’t until 10pm, which gave Rhett plenty of time to enjoy the celebratory brisket his dad had been smoking since 4am. All four of his grandparents came to the ceremony, and a handful of other family members and family friends arrived for the backyard potluck. They gave him presents and cash, and Rhett ate brisket and corn on the cob and macaroni salad and coleslaw until he was ready to burst.

It was great, and what was even better was that once everyone had left, Rhett’s mom insisted that he _not_ help clean up, which was a first. Instead, he went into the living room to lie down on the couch to digest his meal. Rhett was so full that he felt like he should have looked pregnant.

He felt much better once 9:30pm rolled around, so he hauled himself up off the couch and went upstairs. Rhett took a quick shower and spent far too long picking out an outfit. He ended up with dark jeans and a madras plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up. It was nicer than what he usually wore to school, but not _too_ nice.

“Going to that party?” his dad asked as Rhett clattered down the stairs.

“Yep.” Rhett rarely went to parties and had never given his parents a reason not to trust him, and consequently they let him do what he liked. Now that he was 18, he didn’t even have a curfew. All his parents asked was that he turn on the location tracker on his phone, and to let them know if he was going to be gone all night. Thus far, Rhett had only done that once, midway through a Lord of the Rings/Hobbit marathon with a couple of his basketball teammates. He knew he was going to fall asleep at some point, and he did, halfway through the first part of The Hobbit.

“You know you can call us to come get you any time, right honey?” Rhett’s mom asked.

Rhett stopped himself from rolling his eyes. His mom could be a little overprotective, but he knew it was out of love. “Yeah.”

“Because I’d rather get woken up at 3am than you driving drunk or--” 

“Mom, I knoooww,” Rhett interrupted. They had this conversation every time he went out.

“You know I just worry about you, sweetie.” His mom held her arms out for a hug. Rhett leaned over. He was so much taller than her, and taller than his dad, too. It was a mystery where his height came from. None of his relatives were absurdly tall. Maybe it was some kind of super recessive gene.

“I know.” Rhett stood back up. “I promise I’ll behave.” He pulled out his keys and managed to escape after a few more concerned parental remarks.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Rhett stopped at the gas station on the way to Amanda M’s party. She told him to bring soda, because she knew he wouldn’t be able to get any liquor. His parents didn’t keep any at the house, and he couldn’t buy any because he didn’t have a fake ID.

He got a few different two liters for the party and a couple Moxies for himself. The gas station was the only place he’d ever found that sold it. Amanda B said it tasted like a cleaning product, but Rhett liked it.

There weren’t very many people at Amanda M’s house when he got there, which was typical. Rhett was usually one of the first to arrive and one of the first to leave. Amanda M was in the kitchen mixing up some kind of punch that involved Sunny D and a couple different kinds of vodka when he walked in. “Oh, perfect,” she said. “Gimme that Sprite.”

“How much does your dad know about this party?” Rhett asked as she sampled the punch and then poured in more vodka. Amanda M’s dad had to leave immediately after the ceremony on a business trip, which is why she was the one hosting the party.

“Uh, we sort of have this don’t ask, don’t tell policy,” Amanda M said. “As long as everything’s cleaned up by the time he gets back, it’ll be fine. Taste this.” She handed him a red Solo cup full of punch.

Rhett sniffed the punch, which smelled violently like fake citrus, and took a wary sip. It was very sweet and very strong. He swallowed with a grimace. “Good, huh?” Amanda M asked with a grin.

“I’ve had worse.” Rhett took another sip. It was better when he knew what to expect, but he didn’t think he’d have a second helping. He nursed it over the next 45 minutes as more people arrived. It was kind of nice to be mildly buzzed and talk shit on teachers and take stupid pictures in front of a big cheesy graduation display that the Amandas made.

By the time 11:15pm rolled around, Rhett was about done. He’d sobered up, and the music was loud, the house was hot and crowded, and everyone was drunk and stupid. None of it was fun anymore. He went outside to get some fresh air. There were a few other people on the deck, smoking, but they just nodded at him. Rhett nodded back and leaned against the deck railing.

 _You’re not much of a partier_ , Derek said.

 _You act like you just want to leave this all behind_ , Link said.

They were both right. Rhett stared out into the dark backyard and thought. He didn’t really want to be here, but he didn’t want to go home, either. It was a special night, and he wanted to celebrate, but not _this_ celebration. There had to be something else he could do.

Ten minutes later, he was back in his car with half a bottle of vodka swiped from the kitchen and an address for Charles Neal Sr from some sketchy white pages website plugged into his phone.


	9. Chapter 9

It was a little two story house in a working class neighborhood with vinyl siding and a big tree in the yard. It had to be the right place because the old white truck that picked Link up from school was parked in the driveway.

Rhett parked across the street and stared at the house. There were lights on on the first floor, so someone was probably still up, but was it Link? Rhett knew he lived with his grandfather and that he wasn’t at Amanda M’s party, but maybe he had some other plans.

He didn’t know if he should try to psyche himself up or calm himself down, so Rhett just grabbed the vodka and a Moxie and walked up to the door. It had a shiny brass knocker. Rhett tapped it gently three times and waited.

Nothing happened.

Rhett chewed on his lip. He wanted to see Link badly, but he also didn’t want to disturb anyone. After a little consideration, he knocked again. If no one answered, he’d go home.

The wait was so long that he gave up and was turning to go back to his car when the door opened. Rhett spun back around.

“Rhett?” Link peered out through the cracked door. “What are you doing here?”

“I just… you were right,” Rhett blurted. “I didn’t want to be at that party. I wanted to come see you. And I thought maybe we could celebrate a little?” He held up his bottles.

Link’s face lit up and Rhett knew he’d made the right decision. “Yeah, come in,” Link said as he opened the door. “We’ll have to be quiet, though.”

“Okay.” Rhett looked around the house. It was pretty similar to his maternal grandparents’ house: comfortably worn in furniture, dated wallpaper, lots of framed family photos. The only evidence that a teenage boy lived there was a laptop on the coffee table.

“What’s this?” Link took the bottle of Moxie. “‘Refreshingly Different!’ I’ve never seen this before. Is it good?”

“Well, I think so.” Rhett followed Link into the kitchen, which was decorated with chicken wire patterned wallpaper and had little groups of chickens and roosters decoupaged here and there. There were chickens on the curtains, a potholder shaped like a chicken, chicken magnets on the fridge… “Chicken kitchen, chicken kitchen,” Rhett whispered to himself. It was a tongue twister.

“What are you mumbling over there?” Link asked as he got a couple glasses out of the cabinet.

“Chicken kitchen! Chicken chichen… fuck! It’s so hard to say!” Rhett said.

Link snorted. “It’s not that hard. Chicken kitchen, chicken kitsch… dammit.” They both giggled. “Lemme taste that soda.”

Rhett twisted the cap off and handed the bottle to Link, who took a cautious sip. “Ugh!” he grimaced. “It’s like carbonated cough syrup. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I dunno.” Rhett poured some Moxie into his glass and followed it up with a generous glug of vodka. 

Link took a carton of orange juice out of the fridge. “Well, _I’m_ having a screwdriver, because I’m a man of class.”

Rhett looked him up and down. Link was wearing a faded gray baseball tee with blue sleeves and a thin pair of pajama pants. “You’re wearing pineapple pants.”

“And you own a shirt with watermelons on it, so what’s your point?” Link raised an eyebrow and held out his glass. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.” Rhett clinked the glasses together and they each took a drink. His Moxie vodka cocktail was weird, but not bad. “So what are we cheersing for?”

“The end of school?” Link shrugged. “Or whatever. C’mon.” He started off towards the living room and gestured for Rhett to follow him. They settled on opposite ends of the giant, well worn sectional couch.

“Is your grandpa home?” Rhett asked. The couch was extremely comfortable.

“Yeah, but he takes his hearing aids out and he’s a really deep sleeper. Like, a tree fell on the fence outside his window a few weeks ago, and he didn’t wake up. I don’t think he’d mind you being here, though.” Link sipped his drink. “We probably shouldn’t get trashed, though.”

“I don’t really wanna get trashed,” Rhett said. “I just wanna hang out.”

“Mmm.” Link lapsed into silence. It wasn’t a comfortable, companionable silence. It was awkward and a little tense, and Rhett could tell that he was going to blurt out something stupid soon if Link didn’t say something. Luckily, he did. “So why me?”

Rhett blinked. It didn’t seem like something that needed explaining, but he tried anyway. “‘Cause I like you and want to be your friend. Like, even before we had that chem lab together I wanted to get to know you, and then at the river you let me use your metal detector even though you were ready to go home. You could have just told me to fuck off, but you didn’t. So I guess I could ask _you_ , why me?”

Link snickered into his glass and took another swallow of his screwdriver. “You were really the only one who treated me like a real person and didn’t try to pry into my background, which I really appreciate, so thank you. I really mean that, too.”

“Well, you obviously didn’t want to talk about it.” Rhett drained his glass and set it on the coffee table.

“I still don’t.” Link stared into his glass. “I’ve had a real hard time the past few years.”

“Are you okay now?” It seemed like maybe a too personal question, but Rhett needed to know.

Link sighed. “I’m getting better.” He took the last swallow of his drink. “I thought I was going to hate it here, but it’s actually okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing to do here, but it’s kind of nice in a way. Living with Chuck is alright, too. He has no idea what to do with me, but I know he cares. And now I have someone to hang out with.” Link gave Rhett a crooked little grin.

Rhett’s stomach flip flopped. He was so confused by his feelings for Link. There was no way he was getting out of this without saying or doing something stupid, so he might as well go all in. “You want another drink?”

“Hell yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> send me a message on tumblr to see my grandparents' REAL chicken kitchen


	10. Chapter 10

If Rhett liked sober Link, he was absolutely besotted with tipsy Link. Tipsy Link had bright eyes and flushed cheeks and giggled a lot. He and Rhett sat on the couch and talked about nothing. Rhett was having a great time.

“So he’s got the bread in one hand, and his phone in the other, right? Totally not paying attention to anything, his kids are running around and feeding the geese, whatever.” Link held up an imaginary phone and a slice of bread. “And then one kid falls down and starts screaming, and this dumbass looks up, throws his phone in the pond, and tries to stick the bread in his pocket. I have _never_ seen anyone look so torn, like, do I rescue the kid or the phone? Kid or phone?” He dissolved into laughter. “I wish I’d recorded it.”

“Man, _fuck_ geese,” Rhett said. He was drunker than he planned on getting, but not terribly so. “Awful. Just… awful.” He couldn’t come with any synonyms for _awful_. It was probably time to switch to drinking water.

“Yeah, fuck geese.” Link leaned his head on the back of the couch. “I’m tired.”

“So go to sleep,” Rhett suggested. Going to sleep sounded fantastic right about now.

“Mmkay.” Link grabbed one of the throw pillows and scooted down until he could lie flat with the pillow under his head, his feet stretched out towards Rhett. “You can’t go to sleep, though.”

Rhett was already eyeing a throw pillow for himself. “Why not?”

“‘Cause you gotta go home,” Link said. “It’s late. Your mom’s gonna worry.”

“Nah, I already told my parents I’d probably be out all night. They said okay.” In a burst of hopeful confidence, he’d texted them as soon as he left Amanda M’s party. “Sooo… I think I’m gonna go to sleep. If you don’t mind,” Rhett added hastily.

“No, it’s cool.” Link already had his eyes shut. “I dunno what my grandpa will think, but I don’t really care.”

Rhett took a throw pillow. “You want me to turn off this light?”

“Yeah.”

Rhett reached up and turned off the floor lamp. The light in the kitchen was still on, so it wasn’t completely dark, but it was dark enough. He tried to lie down and get comfortable, but Link’s legs were in the way.

“Stop kickin’ me,” Link mumbled. “Can’t go to sleep if you’re kickin’ me.”

“Then get your legs outta my way.” Rhett used his foot to push Link’s legs off the couch and claimed the middle for himself. Link responded by swinging his legs up and over Rhett before wedging them between Rhett’s legs and the back of the couch. Things immediately dissolved into a giggly leg tussle that ended when Link accidentally kicked Rhett in the balls.

“Oh my god, Rhett, I am so sorry.” Link sat up with his hands over his mouth, eyes wide. “That was totally an accident.”

“I know,” Rhett groaned. “I’m not mad. Still hurts though.”

“Okay, let’s just… go like this, maybe?” Link grabbed Rhett’s ankle and positioned his leg so that they were parallel with Link’s. “I think there’s enough room if you quit flailing around.”

“I wasn’t _flailing_ ,” Rhett said indignantly. “I was just trying to claim some space.”

“Well, do you have enough space now?” Their heads were at opposite ends of the couch with their legs sharing space in the middle. “It’s a good thing this couch is so big.”

“Yeah.” Rhett closed his eyes. “Good night.”

“Good night.” There was a silence long enough that Rhett was drifting away before Link spoke again. “Hey, Rhett?”

“Yeah?” Rhett was drifting in the liminal state between sleep and wakefulness.

“I just… other than Chuck, you’re the only one who did anything for me. Neither one of my parents even bothered to text me. So I just wanted you to know, I really appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome,” Rhett managed to get out.

Another longish pause before he heard Link, at the very edge of his consciousness, say, “I really like you. I’m glad we’re friends.”

“I like you, too.” And with that, Rhett was asleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Charles Lincoln!”

Rhett woke with a start. There was an older man with a shock of gray hair wearing a pair of faded overalls standing in front of the couch. He had his hands on his hips and an angry look on his face. Rhett glanced over to Link, who looked like Rhett felt: groggy, guilty, and embarrassed.

“Chuck!” Link scrambled up into a sitting position. “I can explai--” His grandfather cut Link off.

“I don’t want to hear it, Link. Go to your room.” He pointed towards the stairs.

Link gaped at him. “ _What_?” 

“You heard me. Go. To. Your. Room.” He watched as Link got up and headed to the stairs. Rhett wanted the earth to open up and swallow him. He’d never felt as ashamed as he did when he heard the door slam upstairs. Rhett got up and slunk towards the door.

Link’s grandpa stepped in front of him. “No, you sit back down. I need to talk to you.”

Rhett sat back on the couch and clasped his shaking hands between his knees. He had no idea what was going to happen.

“What’s your name?”

“Rhett McLaughlin,” Rhett said in a small voice.

“You gotta speak up, son.” Rhett remembered Link saying that his grandpa wore hearing aids.

“Rhett McLaughlin!” Louder this time.

“You’re his friend from school?”

Rhett nodded. Chuck sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

“Did he invite you over here?”

“No, sir. I surprised him. To celebrate graduation. And I brought the vodka.” Rhett swallowed nervously. “Are you gonna call my parents?”

“Hell, what would I do that for?” He seemed genuinely baffled. “You’re old enough to have a drink, as far as I’m concerned. Link, too.”

“Oh.” It was Rhett’s turn to be baffled. “Then why…?”

“How much had he told you about why he moved here?” the older man asked.

“He hasn’t told me anything. He said he didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, I suppose it ain’t mine to share, then.” He sighed again. “He needs a friend, but!” Link’s grandpa held up a finger. “Not a friend who disrespects my house by staying uninvited and bringing alcohol, do I make myself clear?”

Rhett wanted to say that Link had actually given him permission to stay, but he didn’t think that would go over well. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now get your vodka and scram.”

“Yes, sir.” Rhett scrammed.


	11. Chapter 11

On his way home, Rhett hit a public park with a picnic area, where he poured out the remaining vodka and threw away the bottle. It was early enough that no one was around to see him.

His mom was up when he got home. “Did you have a nice time at the party last night, sweetie?” she asked as he came through the door.

“Uh, not really,” Rhett said as he kicked off his shoes. “It was pretty lame so I ended up going to Link’s house to hang out instead.”

“Well, did you have fun there?”

Rhett thought about lying on the couch with Link, giggling while they tried to kick each other. “Yeah. He’s cool.”

“I’m glad you made a friend,” she said. What she didn’t say was _a friend who isn’t one of those Amandas_ , but Rhett knew they were both thinking it. His mom had been one of the first people to notice how his relationship with Amanda B changed when Amanda M showed up, and she hadn’t approved.

“Me too.” Rhett went upstairs to shower and change his clothes. He wasn’t really hungover, but he didn’t feel great either. Getting cleaned up would help.

He finally had Link’s number, so Rhett sent him a text before heading to the bathroom.

Text to: Link

(Rhett): sorry i got you in trouble

(Rhett): i told him it was my idea and i brought the vodka

(Rhett): so i hope he wasn’t too mad at you

Link didn’t text back right away, but twenty minutes later when Rhett got out of the shower, he had a response. He picked up the phone and read.

(Link): i’m not really in trouble

(Link): well i kind of got lectured about disrespecting the house

(Link): but i’m not grounded or anything

(Link): what did he say to you?

Rhett texted back.

(Rhett): i got the disrespecting the house lecture too

(Rhett): honestly thought it would be worse

(Link): yeah he’s pretty cool about stuff

(Link): when i moved in he was all like

(Link): look you’re almost 18 so if you act like an adult i’ll treat you like one

(Link): it’s a pretty good deal

(Rhett): yeah

(Rhett): are you going to the river today?

(Link): no

(Link): i told you last night i have a bunch of chores

(Rhett): oh

(Rhett): i don’t remember that

(Link): lol

(Rhett): next week i’m totally free

(Rhett): and then after that i work mon wed fri

(Rhett): let’s make some plans

(Link): k

(Link): i gotta go mow the lawn so ttyl

(Rhett): bye have fun

He put the phone down. Rhett had some chores to do, too, but his short term plans involved food and a nap.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Are you okay, man?” Rhett asked. “You seem kind of out of sorts.”

Link sighed. “Have you ever felt like everything, your whole life, was on hold until something specific happened, and then it happened, and you were disappointed because nothing actually changed?”

“Yeah.” Rhett slapped at a mosquito on his leg. Instead of the river, they were poking around in the woods in an attempt to find the foundation of a house that had burned down when Link’s grandfather was growing up. So far, all they’d found were mosquitos, ticks, and a long black snake that made Link shriek as it slithered away from him.

“Well, I mean I’m not stupid enough to think things would change like--” Link snapped his fingers. “But it was my birthday yesterday. I’ve been waiting so long, I thought I’d feel _something_.”

“Link! You should have said! I would have brought you something.”

Link scoffed. “You don’t have to get me anything.”

“Well, what did you think you’d feel?” Rhett asked. He had a long stick that he was using to poke through the underbrush with, and he reached over and poked Link in the side with it. “Something like that?”

“Agh, no!” Link twisted away from the stick. “Just, more grown up, somehow.”

“You could buy a lottery ticket,” Rhett suggested. “That’s what I did.”

“Did you win anything?” Link asked.

“Nope.”

Link nodded solemnly. “My mom said lottery tickets are a tax on people who don’t understand math.”

“Shut up.” Rhett prodded at Link with the stick again. Link almost never mentioned his parents, even though Rhett learned that his dad only lived ten minutes away from his grandpa’s house. He still hadn’t told Rhett why he moved away from LA or why he lived with his grandfather instead of his dad. Rhett didn’t pry, partially because he thought it would be rude, but mostly because Link was incredibly stubborn.

“You shut up.” Link picked up a twig and threw it at Rhett. It completely missed.

“Yeah, I can see that you’re not grown up.” Rhett ducked another slightly larger twig. “What did you want to do now that you couldn’t when you were seventeen?”

“Well, I was going to move out of my mom’s place,” Link said. “But that changed a few months ago. So _then_ my plan was to move in with my dad and get a GED and work for a while to save up to get my own place when I turned eighteen. But then I ended up with my grandpa and he said that he wasn’t able to finish high school and neither was my dad, and he was damned if I didn’t finish high school. So I don’t even know.” He shrugged and waved a gnat away from his face.

“Oh.” That explained why Link joined his class three months before the end of the school year. Unfortunately, it didn’t really explain anything else about Link’s past. All it really did was bring up new questions for Rhett. “You wanna come over to my place and bake a cake or something?”

Link threw up his hands. “Sure, what the hell. We’re obviously not finding anything today and I’m going to fucking lose it if I find one more bug on my skin.”

“I _told_ you to put on bug spray,” Rhett said, and he wasn’t fast enough to dodge the twig that Link threw at him this time.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“I never made a cake from scratch before,” Link said. “It’s good, though.”

“Better than a mix?” Rhett asked. His personal favorite cake was yellow cake from a box with chocolate frosting from a can. It drove his mother crazy every time he asked for it on his birthday, but he insisted that, as the birthday boy, he got to choose his own cake.

Link squished the cake crumbs with the tines of his forks and smiled. “I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah, I thought we had a mix.” Rhett’s mom overheard them talking about whether they should go to the store for a mix or just skip it altogether and hauled out her ancient, much beloved copy of _The Joy of Cooking_. Instead of frosting, they topped their vanilla cake with a can of Reddi-Whip that Rhett unearthed in the fridge.

They’d been out of school for over a week now. Rhett’s summer job started tomorrow. Link had been looking for work, but hadn’t found anything yet. His grandpa agreed to let Link live with him, rent free, until he went off to college in the fall, and Link wanted to save up as much money as possible before then.

Every time they hung out, Link opened up a little more. Rhett loved it. Link laughed and smiled and teased him. He wore bright graphic tees and his hair was nearly two inches long. It was hard to believe he was the same person who, three months ago, was doing everything he could to fade into the background.

This was the real Link, Rhett was sure. How and why he ended up in North Carolina, curled up in on himself, was a mystery

One day, he’d ask Link about it, but for now, they’d just eat cake.


	12. Chapter 12

Everyone at the dentist’s office was very nice, but Rhett felt wildly out of his depth. For one thing, the only other man who worked there was his dad’s dentist friend, who owned the practice. The other dentist, all of the hygienists, and the office staff were all women. They were lovely, but Rhett towered over all of them. They also all wore scrubs, and he felt overdressed in his khakis and polo.

Luckily, he got to hide in the back of the office with his own computer and scanner. It didn’t take long for him to learn the software they used, and by his third day, Rhett was cruising along while listening to music or podcasts.

The mindless nature of the work gave him plenty of time to think, and he spent a lot of that time thinking about Link. He also thought about Link while he was at home, while he was out doing errands, and while he was actually hanging out with Link in person.

Rhett wasn’t in denial about the fact that he had a crush on Link. He just didn’t know what to _do_ about it.

The first issue was that Link was a guy. Rhett had never been interested in another guy before. In theory, he wasn’t opposed to it. However, it was proving to be a little more difficult in practice.

The emotional part, the way he felt about Link, that was easy. Link’s smile gave Rhett butterflies in his stomach every time, and his laugh was even better. Whatever hurts Link had suffered in the past, whatever had sent him across the country and made him want to hide… Rhett would do anything to stop it from happening again.

The physical part was a little trickier. Amanda B has described Link as “dreamy,” and by now Rhett agreed. He wouldn’t describe Link as handsome, exactly. That word held a very specific masculine connotation to Rhett, and there was something about Link, with his soft lips and long eyelashes, that was feminine without being effeminate. He was, simply, the most beautiful person Rhett had ever seen, period.

He could easily imagine kissing Link, but that was where his imagination stopped. So far, Rhett’s only real world sexual experience consisted of making out with Emma Rose in the back of his car. A few times, they’d progressed into awkward but enjoyable groping under their clothes. Rhett didn’t think that would help him very much with Link.

At least a little research on the gay side of PornHub had proven to Rhett that yes, he could be into the idea of being with another guy (especially if that guy was Link).

The hardest part would be the social part. Rural North Carolina wasn’t the most enlightened part of the world, although it was better than it used to be. Rhett was sure things would be fine at NC State, but he wasn’t so sure it would go over well with his parents. They didn’t seem to mind celebrities being in same sex relationships, but they might feel differently about their own son. It wasn’t like actually _knew_ any gay couples.

Of course, that was all theoretical unless Link actually liked him back.

~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~

Amanda M and Amanda B left on their road trip three weeks after graduation. Neither one of them had texted Rhett in that time, but before leaving town they stopped in front of his house and honked the horn until Rhett’s dad went outside and told them to knock it off.

“Rhett!” Amanda M leaned out the window and yelled as Rhett walked up to her new silver SUV. “Are you suuure you don’t want to come?”

“I’m sure,” Rhett answered, thinking of standing knee deep in the cool river with Link, under the dappled sunlight beneath the trees. “I don’t even know where you’re going.”

“Memphis!” Amanda B said. “And St. Louis and Chicago.”

“That does sound cool,” Rhett said truthfully. It did. “But I can’t. You guys have fun, though.” He chatted with the Amandas for a little while longer and then watched them drive off. Rhett knew his friendship with Amanda B had been fading for a long time, but he was pretty sure it was gone now.

He went back inside to text Link.

~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~

Rhett’s enthusiasm for metal detecting didn’t last, but he was perfectly happy to accompany Link to wherever he wanted to go. A friend of Link’s grandpa Chuck had told them about an old swimming hole about ten miles upstream from their usual spot. It had been used until the 1960s, when a public pool had opened.

“I bet we find rings,” Link said. He was in the passenger seat of Rhett’s car with all his gear in the trunk. “It’s like the beach. People wear their rings in and the cold water makes their fingers shrink and they just slide off.” He pulled the ring off his middle finger to illustrate.

“How many rings have you found?” Rhett asked.

“Mmm…” Link looked out the window and thought. “Like a few dozen cheap ones that weren’t worth anything, maybe fifteen nice silver ones, and eight gold rings. And a diamond bracelet.”

“Holy shit!” Rhett glanced over at Link, who was grinning at him. He knew Link had made some nice finds, but he hadn’t known it was _that_ many.

“Yeah. Two of the silver ones were class rings with initials inside, so I was able to get them back to their owners, but everything else…” Link shrugged. He held up his right hand and admired the battered signet ring. “This is the only one I kept, though. My first one.”

“What happened to the rest?” Rhett asked.

“Sold ‘em,” Link said. “I didn’t want to, but I needed to buy a plane ticket.”

Rhett was incredulous. “Wait, did you _run away_?” 

“No, I did not ‘run away’. I called my dad and asked if I could stay with him for a couple months until I turned eighteen, he said yes, so I told my mom and her husband I wanted to move, and they said fine. Well…” Link sighed. “There was actually a lot of yelling and fighting, but you get the idea.”

Rhett looked over at him again. Link’s eyes were covered up by his blue mirrored sunglasses, but his mouth was twisted into an unhappy frown. “I’m sorry,” Rhett said.

“Thanks,” Link mumbled. “Anyway, maybe I can replace some of it today.”

“You wanna, what, just hoard it?” Rhett asked. “Like a dragon?”

Link snorted in surprised laughter. “Yes, Rhett. Exactly like a dragon. I’m gonna put a handful of coins and jewelry in my bed and sleep on it every night.”

“Or a pirate!” Rhett continued. “Maybe Chuck could make you a little treasure chest. I’ve seen his workshop. That man has more tools than he knows what to do with.”

“I have my mom’s jewelry box from when she was grow--oh, there’s the turn!” Link turned to Rhett, dismayed. “Fuck. Sorry!”

“It’s okay. Umm… I’m just gonna do a u-turn. Nobody’s out here to see us, right?” It was a deserted country road, and Rhett was able to turn without difficulty.

Ten minutes later, they were standing on the shore of the river, slathered with sunscreen and bug spray. Rhett could immediately see why this spot had been used as a swimming hole. It was wide and calm, with a sandy bottom and a few overhanging trees. “Wow.”

“Yeah, this is nice,” Link said. He kicked at the sandy gravel. “This was probably underwater. Before the drought, I mean.”

“Mmhm.” Rhett was at a swimming hole, so he was going to swim. He toed off his sneakers and peeled off his shirt before wading into the cool water. “Oh, this feels amazing. Hey, Link!”

Link wasn’t listening. He already had his headphone on and was sweeping the metal detector across the ground in slow, steady arcs. Rhett rolled his eyes and waded deeper. Link was in the zone and he wasn’t coming out until he found something or his batteries ran out.

Rhett floated on his back in the middle of the river, where it was deep enough that he could barely touch the bottom with his nose above the surface. He’d never had a relationship like this, where they could each do their own thing in parallel and be perfectly content. Even when he and Amanda B were close, they always had to be _doing_ something (usually something Amanda B chose). 

It was different with Link. Sure, Saturdays were usually spent out metal detecting somewhere, but he wasn’t offended that Rhett didn’t share his passion. It was enough to simply have Rhett nearby.

And Rhett liked being nearby. What he liked more, though, was being _close_ to Link. Sometimes they’d sit on the giant sectional at Link’s grandpa’s house and watch Netflix on Link’s laptop. It forced them to sit close to each other, laptop perched on one of their laps. Rhett longed to drape his arm over Link’s shoulder, but for now it was enough to sit shoulder to shoulder and let their arms brush against each other.

There was an exclamation of surprise from the shore. Rhett lifted his head to see Link crouched down over a little hole dug in the sand. “Rhett, I _got_ one!” Link shrieked in delight.

Rhett reached the shore as Link rinsed his find off in the water. “Is it really a gold ring?” he asked.

“I think so.” Link shook water off the ring and pushed his sunglasses up on his head. He held it close and squinted at it. Even with his face all scrunched up, Rhett thought Link was lovely. “It’s got a hallmark… 14k? I think that’s what it says. And there’s a date.”

“Can I see?” Rhett asked. Link handed him the ring, a little reluctantly. It was a plain gold band, slightly misshapen, probably large enough to fit his big fingers. There was a date engraved inside. “3-16-32. A wedding ring?”

“Probably.” Link took it back. “Sucks for the guy who lost it. No way to find him now, though.”

“I guess not.” There wasn’t really anything you could do with just a date, Rhett figured. He reached over and clapped Link on the shoulder. “Congrats, man.”

The smile that Link gave him was brighter and more beautiful than any gold could ever be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a video on youtube where a guy finds five gold rings in one day at an old swimming hole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmlhfKrCAsA&t=791s


	13. Chapter 13

As it turned out, Rhett had a limit on how much existing in parallel he was willing to do.

The old swimming hole immediately became Link’s new obsession. They went there three times in a row, and Link found four more gold rings, six silver rings, a few earrings, a watch, a ton of loose change, a couple pocket knives and keys, and approximately ten thousand pull tabs.

“Dude. No. Like, I don’t mind hanging out at the river sometimes, but we gotta do something else,” Rhett said when Link suggested a fourth trip. “Anyway, that stuff has been there for years. It’s not going anywhere.”

“Nnn…” Link did an anxious little dance on the doorstep of his grandpa’s house. Rhett knew he really, really wanted to insist on going to the swimming hole. The siren song of possible treasures was strong.

“Maybe you should ask Chuck to give you a ride when I’m at work,” Rhett suggested. 

Link froze and gave Rhett a puzzled, indignant look. “But I want to go with _you_!”

Rhett was genuinely touched by that, but… “We barely even talk once you put those headphones on.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just…” Link made a helpless little gesture. “I just like having you around, I guess.”

“I like having you around, too,” Rhett said. “Did you, like, have friends in LA?”

“Well, yeah,” Link said in an _obviously_ tone of voice. “I mean, I’ve told you stories.”

“Okay, I guess what I mean is, did you hang out with any of them like that? Both of you just doing your own thing in the same place?” Rhett had been thinking, recently, that Link didn’t quite treat him in a purely friendly fashion. Maybe, just maybe, Link shared at least a little of Rhett’s feelings. His heart was in his throat as he waited for Link to answer.

“No…” Link said slowly. He looked over and met Rhett’s eyes for what seemed like a long, long time. _Oh my god_ , thought Rhett. _Oh my god, I might have a chance_.

Then Link glanced away and the moment vanished like a puff of smoke. “What would you want to do instead?” he asked.

“Something indoors, with air conditioning,” Rhett answered. “Like a movie, maybe.”

“Oh, come _on_.” Like was incredulous. “You just complained about hanging out without talking, and your solution to that is a _movie_?”

Rhett had actually been thinking about sitting in the dark with Link with no chance of being interrupted by his grandfather, and maybe putting an arm around him, or trying to hold his hand. Link had a point, though. “Um, there’s a science museum in Raleigh?”

“Sure.” Link gave him a brilliant, crooked smile. “Let’s go.”

~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~

There was a shift in Link’s behavior after that day. It was subtle, but it was there. He seemed a little nervous now, but not like he had been the day of their chemistry lab. Rhett thought that Link was nervous in the way someone was nervous around their crush. He laughed at Rhett’s jokes as if they were funnier than they actually were, he stood closer to Rhett than he had before, and Rhett caught Link looking at him when he thought Rhett wasn’t paying attention.

Link didn’t actually _do_ anything, though, so Rhett decided he’d have to make the first move. Nothing too big, though, because he didn’t know how Link would react. He really, really didn’t want to jeopardize their friendship. If Link rejected him, Rhett didn’t know if they could continue being friends. It might hurt too much.

His chance came on a Wednesday evening. They were sitting on the sectional together, watching a movie on Link’s laptop. He always complained that his grandpa’s TV was too old to play Netflix on, but Rhett didn’t mind. He liked being close to Link.

They were watching _Jaws_ , because Link had somehow never seen it. “Oh, god,” he kept muttering. “So much blood. Ugh.”

Rhett felt a little guilty about choosing such a gory movie. He’d completely forgotten about Link fainting at the sight of blood. “You okay over there?” he asked in concern.

Link glanced over with one of his crooked little smiles. “Don’t worry, I only pass out from seeing real blood. This is just… gross.”

“Okay, good.” A few minutes passed and Link became engrossed (and grossed out) by the movie again. His hands were resting on his thighs, which were right next to Rhett’s hand on his own thigh. Rhett slid his hand a tiny bit closer and hooked his pinkie around Link’s pinkie.

Link sucked in a breath and froze. Rhett looked at him out of the corner of his eye. Link stared straight ahead at the movie, eyes wide, and licked his lips nervously. He didn’t move to take Rhett’s hand, but he didn’t pull away, either. Rhett was more excited by this than he really should have been. It wasn’t much, but at least it was a baby step in the right direction.

They sat like that, pinkies linked in the darkened living room, until the underwater jump scare scene. Link screamed and covered his face with his hands, and the spell was broken.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Your housing packet from school came,” his dad said as Rhett came downstairs after changing out of his work clothes.

“Finally.” Rhett took the thick envelope and tore it open. “Geez, look at all this stuff.” There was a list of regulations to sign and initial, a few questionnaires (“On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest, how would you rate your tidiness?”), and information about dorm rooms and apartment style living and amenities… it was a lot.

A few of Rhett’s basketball teammates were also going to NC State and they’d sort of kicked around the idea of getting a suite together, but now Rhett had a different idea. He brought it up the next day, when he and Link went to the Chinese buffet that served both a wide variety of American Chinese food and a few different extremely traditional Mexican dishes. Rhett asked the hostess about it one time on his way out, and she told him the head chef was from Tabasco.

“The sauce?” he asked. 

She looked at him as if he were an idiot. “It’s a state in Mexico.”

“Ah,” Rhett said, and slunk out in acute embarrassment. Whenever he came in and she was working the front register, he’d cringe internally, sure she was judging him.

Happily, she wasn’t there today, so Rhett was free to enter the buffet in peace. He filled his plate with lo mein, cashew chicken, and some kind of spiced meat and plantain patty. Link went for fried rice with beef and broccoli.

“Have you looked at your housing packet from school yet?” Rhett asked as he broke apart his bamboo chopsticks.

Link shook his head. “No, it got delivered to my dad’s house and my grandpa hasn’t picked it up for me yet.”

Rhett’s housing train of thought was completely derailed. He swallowed his noodle and said, “You don’t talk to your dad at _all_? You don’t even see him?”

Link shook his head and stuck a broccoli floret in his mouth.

“Why not?” Rhett asked. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I just wanna, y’know, understand you a little more?”

“Yeah.” Link pushed rice around his plate with his chopsticks. “Um, we’re not close, obviously. Like, he’d send me Christmas and birthday presents, and we’d talk on the phone every month or two, but that was it. When I was sixteen, I got in kind of a lot of trouble, and he and my mom talked about sending me to live with him. It didn’t happen, but when my mom’s husb--I mean, when I decided I had to leave, I asked him if the offer still stood. And he said yeah.”

He was silent for so long that Rhett thought maybe he was done. “And that’s it?”

Link sighed. “No. It was okay for the first week or so. He tried to do some father-son bonding shit with me, but it was like… only stuff that he liked? Like, he had this image of this tough country boy son who’d hunt and fish and work on trucks with him, but instead he got this.” Link gestured to himself, purple shirt and skinny jeans and delicate bones.

Rhett blinked. Link was about as far from a good ol’ boy as it was possible to be. “I can’t imagine you hunting,” he said.

“Uh, no.” Link rolled his eyes. “I tried, though. I kinda liked the skeet shooting, even though I was really bad at it.” He aimed and fired an imaginary shotgun, complete with sound effects. “He just got more and more frustrated with me. His girlfriend didn’t like me, either. It was like… I left one bad situation and ended right up in another one.”

“So what happened?” Rhett asked. “How’d you end up with Chuck?”

“I was there for three weeks…” Link wouldn’t, or couldn’t, meet Rhett’s eyes. “We were in the backyard. He was trying to teach me to split wood, but I couldn’t do it, so he started yelling at me. And, um, Chuck just happened to stop by and overheard him call me a ‘stuck up prissy LA fag’.” His voice broke as he said it.

“Holy _shit_ ,” Rhett said. A shameful traitorous thought appeared: _are you_?

“Yeah. Chuck fuckin’ lost it, man.” Link shook his head in disbelief. “He had all these veins popping out of his forehead. I thought he was gonna have a stroke. But he, uh, he told my dad that he was ashamed of him, that he didn’t raise him to be like that, etc, etc. And then he told me to get my stuff because I was moving in with him.” He spread his hands in front of him. “So there you go. I don’t talk to my dad because he’s a verbally abusive asshole.”

“I see why your mom divorced him,” Rhett said. Link huffed a little laugh out at that. “That sucks, man. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“Thanks.” Link pushed the rice on his plate around some more. “I’m gonna go get more food.”

“Sounds good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP the Chinese buffet with the Mexican food that had a panda holding a taco with chopsticks on their sign.


	14. Chapter 14

Link’s mood had improved while he filled up his second plate, so Rhett went back to the original topic.

“Do you want to be roommates at school?” he asked. _Please say yes_.

“No,” Link said around a mouthful of rice. Rhett’s heart sank. Link noticed his expression. “It’s not personal, Rhett! I just really, really need my own space, so I’m getting a single.”

“Oh,” Rhett said in a small voice. He tried to hide his disappointment by slurping up some noodles. Link wasn’t fooled.

“Okay, it’s a _little_ bit personal,” Link admitted. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you’d be a distraction. I gotta keep my scholarship, you know?”

 _Don’t take it the wrong way?_ Rhett wasn’t sure what the right way to take it would be. The only way he could think of to take it involved a lot of close, intimate contact while sharing a small room, which would indeed be very distracting.

In fact, the very thought was so distracting that Rhett didn’t hear Link ask him a question at first. “Sorry, what?”

Link pointed a chopstick at Rhett’s plate. “I said, you took the last plantain thing, so can I have half of it?”

“Oh, sure.” Rhett pushed his plate across the table.

 _You can have whatever you want._

~*~*~*~*~**~*~

June was almost over. Their relationship has progressed from hanging out on Saturdays at the river for a couple hours to spending entire days together multiple times a week. Link didn’t have a formal job, but on the days Rhett went to work, he’d mow lawns or accompany his grandfather on odd jobs to make a little money.

“The stupidest thing about it,” Link told Rhett, “is that it’s the kind of stuff that my dad would totally approve of. He just never bothered to get to know me.”

“Well, that’s his loss,” Rhett said with feeling. He’d never met Link’s dad and had no desire to.

“Yeah.” They were at the swimming hole again. After their not-quite-argument, Link stopped spending all his time with the metal detector and started spending more time with Rhett. Currently, they were sitting on the sandy river bottom, up to their necks in the cool, clear water. True, Link had the pinpointer and was poking around with it, but Rhett was willing to overlook that.

Link looked especially nice today. He’d gotten a haircut now that his hair was long enough to push back (“Chuck said he didn’t care if I grew my hair back out, but I couldn’t look like a bum while I did it.”), and now the hair on the nape of his neck was clipped short. Rhett longed to run his fingers over it while it still had that crisp, soft, just-cut feeling, but he didn’t know how Link would react.

In the two weeks since they watched _Jaws_ , Rhett had tried a few different ways to get closer to Link. None of them had been successful. It was almost as if Link was deliberately stopping himself from responding to Rhett.

He remembered something Amanda B had said to him during the period of his junior year when he was pining over Emma Rose. “Will you just fucking make a move already? She’s obviously at least _kind_ of into you, but she’s gonna lose interest if you don’t do anything about it! Jesus, Rhett.” Amanda B shook her head in dismay at his lack of action. She was right, too.

“Oh, I got something.” Link dug around for a moment and made a disgusted noise. He held up a small metal object. “Another fucking pull tab.”

Rhett laughed. Link probably got ten pull tabs for every interesting thing he found, and he got mad about it every time. Then he’d save it to add to the scrap metal that Chuck gathered on his odd jobs. Usually he’d just stick them in his pocket, but today he was wearing a swimsuit, so he gathered them up in a plastic bottle he’d found on the shore.

Link in a swimsuit was a lot to take in. It was a little too big, so it hung low on his hips when he got out of the water and Rhett could see the line of hair under his navel almost all the way down. He could see the way Link’s bones and muscles moved under his skin and the way the skin on his stomach folded up when he bent over. Link wasn’t perfect, but Rhett wouldn’t change anything about him.

In contrast, Rhett felt gawky and gangly. His long arms and legs, useful for basketball as they were, always made him feel like he was encroaching on others’ personal space. He was just so _unnecessarily_ tall and lanky. His dad promised Rhett that he’d fill out more as he got older, but it hadn’t happened yet. At least his beard had come in enough that he was happier with his face. 

“I’m just not having any luck today,” Link sighed. His hair stuck out in damp spikes. The orange pinpointer floated to the top of the water as he let go of it. “Let’s go do something else.”

“My place?” Rhett suggested. “We can make a frozen pizza.” Rhett could cook just fine, thanks to his mother insisting he help in the kitchen, but garbage frozen pizza had a special place in his heart.

“The trashy one?” Link asked.

Rhett made a shocked face. “Of course! What kind of person do you take me for?”

Link laughed and stood up, and Rhett’s brain short circuited. Again.


	15. Chapter 15

“Your turn,” Rhett said as he came into the kitchen, freshly showered and wearing a t-shirt and basketball shorts. Link stood at the counter picking at the olives on the frozen pizza as the oven preheated. Rhett rolled his eyes. “Oh, geez, not the olive thing again.” 

“Sorry, it _is_ the olive thing again,” Link responded. “As long as there are olives, I’m gonna do the olive thing.” He turned around and gave Rhett one of his crooked smiles. Rhett grinned back, hoping his face didn’t show how keyed up he was.

It was Thursday. Rhett’s parents were both at work, so he and Link had the house to themselves. Usually, their routine consisted of rinsing off the river water, eating either garbage pizza or cooking something fast and easy like grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, and then playing video games, sharing their favorite movies with each other, or just hanging out.

They always sat a little closer on the couch than was strictly necessary. Rhett’s plan today was to sit _very_ close to Link, and if that went well, he was going to kiss him.

Rhett had never been so nervous in his life. Not when he learned that college basketball scouts were attending his games, not when he asked Emma Rose out, not when he drove his mother’s car with her in the passenger seat for the first time.

If Link wasn’t into it… Rhett wasn’t sure what he would do. It really depended on if Link’s reaction was more along the lines of, “I’m flattered, but no,” or “argh argh argh get off me, what the fuck are you doing?”

Of course, if Link kissed back, then Rhett had an entirely different set of problems to deal with. First and foremost would be telling his parents he was in a relationship with another guy. Rhett always wore his heart on his sleeve, and his parents weren’t dumb. He was sure they’d figure it out pretty quickly.

And who even knew how Chuck would react? It was true that he’d rescued Link after hearing him called a slur, but older white men in the South weren’t generally known for their open-mindedness.

“Hey.” Link collapsed onto the loveseat next to him. While Rhett had been lost in his thoughts, Link had put the pizza in the oven, set the time, and showered. He had on a pair of gray joggers and one of his fade-into-the-background plain shirts, and he smelled like Rhett’s soap.

“Hey.” Rhett shifted his weight and subtly (at least he hoped so) moved closer to Link. Link pulled his legs up onto the couch and tucked them under himself like he always did, and settled in closer to Rhett.

 _Just fucking make a move already!_ Amanda B’s exasperated voice said in his head. Rhett knew she was right, so he took a deep breath, nervously licked his lips, and said, “Hey, Link?”

“Yeah?” Link turned to him and Rhett leaned in. His lips brushed Link’s, which were as soft they looked. Rhett’s heart was pounding harder than it ever had during a basketball game, even the state championship. The butterflies in his stomach turned into fireworks, and he thought he might burst.

But Link didn’t kiss back. Rhett’s good feelings only lasted a split second before Link made a sort of strangled yelp and jerked back and leapt off the loveseat. “Rhett, what the _fuck_?”

Rhett’s inside immediately seized up and sank like a stone. “Link... “ he said helplessly. “I thought…”

“Maybe you should have thought about talking to me before doing something like that!” Link exploded. He threw up his hands. His face was blotchy red and he looked like he might burst into tears. “ _I_ thought… well, I guess it doesn’t matter what I thought, huh?”

“Link, please,” Rhett pleaded. “We can talk--”

“Leave me alone!” Link stomped over to where his shoes and backpack rested by the door. “Jesus Christ, Rhett.”

Rhett was still frozen on the couch. “Wait, where are you going?”

Link slung on his backpack. “Home.”

“That’s too far to walk!”

Link spun around and glared furiously at Rhett. “I said leave me _alone!_ ” He turned, threw open the door, slammed it shut behind him, and was gone, leaving Rhett alone with his thoughts.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

Rhett dropped his head into his hands and squeezed his eyes shut. How had it gone so wrong? Had he completely misread Link’s body language? He thought back on his interactions with Link and tried to figure out what he missed.

When the timer for the pizza went off a little while later, Rhett ignored it.

He did not ignore the smoke alarm that went off twenty minutes after that.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Rhett disposed of the charred pizza in the garage trash can, turned on the fan, and sprayed some Febreeze around. His parents were not going to be pleased when they got home.

Once he’d done his best to mitigate the smokey smell, he collapsed back onto the couch, where he continued auditing his relationship with Link. Rhett really couldn’t figure out where he’d gone wrong. He hoped Link would talk it over with him at some point.

The doorbell rang. Rhett ignored it. He didn’t want any distractions from his misery.

It rang again. And again. Then whoever was at the door started ringing the bell nonstop.

_Ding ding ding ding dong. Ding ding ding ding ding ding dong._

“Oh my god, fine,” Rhett muttered as he hauled himself upright and went to the door. “This better be good.” He yanked it open with a scowl. “ _What_?”

“Hi.” It was Link, looking nervous and rattled with his backpack in his hand. “Can I come in?”

“Uh, yeah.” Rhett opened the door and stood aside. “Link, what--”

Link dropped his bag on the floor, grabbed Rhett’s hips, and pulled him close while standing on his tiptoes. He kissed Rhett with a passion that left him breathless. Rhett barely had the presence of mind to swing the door shut. He put one arm around Link’s waist and cupped the back of Link’s head with the other, rubbing his fingers across the freshly cut short hair.

Rhett wasn’t sure what was happening, but he was enjoying it. Link kissed with more lip than tongue, and Rhett could feel his stubble. Rhett had kissed a number of girls, and those kisses were nothing compared to this one. He wondered if Link had practiced a lot, or if he was just naturally talented. Rhett still didn’t know that much about his past.

Link pulled back a little, but stayed close enough that his lips brushed Rhett’s when he spoke. “I’m sorry, Rhett. I’m so sorry.” He kissed Rhett and spoke again. “I was just so scared.”

Rhett shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it. “Link, it’s--” 

Link sniffed the air and his eyes grew wide. “Is there something _burning_ in here?”

“Um, that was the pizza,” Rhett said sheepishly. He felt his cheeks going pink, so he wrapped his arms around Link’s shoulders and pulled him close so Link couldn’t see his face.

Link laughed. “You burned the pizza?”

“You were gone,” Rhett said simply.

“I’m sorry,” Link repeated. “I’ll make it up to you.” He steered Rhett backwards until he hit the couch and sat. Link climbed into his lap.

The only time Rhett had been in this position before was with Emma Rose, who was graceful and blessed with an abundance of natural curves. Link, in contrast, had no spatial awareness or curves whatsoever. He was all sharp angles and elbows and knees, one of which he jabbed into Rhett’s thigh.

Rhett grunted and tried to move Link. He was stronger and heavier than he looked, and he was so busy kissing Rhett that Rhett had to give him a fairly hard shove. Link didn’t skip a beat; he just settled into the new position.

Time passed. Rhett wasn’t sure how much. It simultaneously seemed like forever and no time at all, but eventually Link pulled back. “Wow,” he whispered. He’d ditched his glasses somewhere along the way. His cheeks were flushed and his hair was a mess. Rhett thought back to graduation night when they got drunk on stolen vodka. Link looked a lot like he did now.

“Wow,” Rhett echoed. He had his arms around Link’s waist, and Link had his arms draped over Rhett’s shoulder. Rhett was suddenly aware of how hard he was. He glanced down. Link’s thin pants did nothing to hide that he was just as hard as Rhett. They were very, very close together, and if Link scooted forward another couple inches, Rhett was absolutely going to cum in his pants.

But Link didn’t move. He stared into Rhett’s eyes and ran a hand along Rhett’s jaw. “God, Rhett, you’re so beautiful.”

Rhett’s eyebrows shot up. No one had ever called him beautiful before. “Really?”

“Don’t act like you didn’t know.” Link gave him the softest smile. “I don’t think your eyes have ever been the same color twice, and the way they sort of crinkle up when you smile? It’s _really_ cute.”

“I--” Rhett’s voice broke.

“And your beard? I’m not really into beards, but _damn_ does it work for you. Then there’s your legs.” Link whistled a little cat call. “Wow.”

“My legs?” Rhett did not love his legs. Yes, they were great for basketball, but they just wouldn’t stop getting longer. His mom started buying his jeans online when Rhett was fifteen, and they were even longer now.

“Yeah, I never knew I was into legs,” Link said, laughing. “But there’s a lot of things I didn’t know I was into before I met you.” He leaned forward and kissed Rhett again.

“What does that mean?” Rhett asked when he could speak again.

“It means, I never had a boyfriend before.” Link laughed. “Okay, I didn’t tell you about this, but a few weeks ago Chuck asked if you were my boyfriend.”

“He did?” Rhett’s eyes widened in alarm. “Was he mad? What did you say?”

“Obviously I said no, ‘cause you weren’t,” Link said. “And he wasn’t mad, just sort of… confused? He’s like this weird semi-woke redneck. I think he started trying to broaden his horizons when I showed up.” He put on the Southern accent he used when he imitated his grandfather. Rhett loved when Link did the accent. It was like a glimpse into another universe where Link never moved away. “He was like, ‘Well, Link, you know I don’t get it. I just don’t understand how a man could look at another man… like that. But I know it ain’t a choice, and I know the world don’t need any more hate. And I guess you could do a lot worse than that McLaughlin boy.’”

Rhett burst into laughter. “That’s amazing.”

“Then he said I was absolutely not to ‘have relations’ with anyone under his roof.” Link did air quotes and rolled his eyes.

“I don’t think we could have relations in your bed.” Link had a twin bed in his father’s old bedroom. It had blue and cream striped wallpaper with matching blue carpet and cream furniture. There were also a couple large moving boxes filled with the belongings Link hadn’t left in LA. Rhett spent some time thinking about what he’d take with him if he were to leave his life behind. It was an interesting thought experiment, but he was very glad he wasn’t in that situation.

Link stiffened a little. “I, um, I’m not ready to have relations,” he said quietly, a nervous expression on his face. “At least, not yet.”

The most relations Rhett had ever had was getting to second base with Emma Rose (or at least he thought it was second base), and that had been a very big deal to him. Thanks, abstinence only sex ed! Having relations with Link, _full_ relations, wasn’t even on his radar yet. “Me neither.”

Link relaxed and gave Rhett one of his sweet, crooked smiles. “Glad to hear we’re on the same page.”

“Yeah, the kissing page.” Rhett leaned forward, and then they were kissing again, sweet and patient.


	16. Chapter 16

The next time Rhett went to Link’s house, he was in the chicken kitchen when Chuck caught his eye and made a series of gestures that ended with a finger drawn across his throat and then pointed at Rhett, which Rhett interpreted as, “you hurt my boy and I’ll hurt you.” He must have looked pretty freaked out, because Chuck grinned and clapped him on the shoulder on his way out of the kitchen.

Link, digging in the fridge, missed the entire thing.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Dealing with Chuck was easy for Rhett--be nice, be friendly, don’t kiss in front of him (apparently his wokeness didn’t extend quite that far, to judge by the look on his face when he saw Link kiss Rhett). He got the feeling it had been harder for Link, at least at first. Before Link’s mom took him to LA, Link had spent a lot of time with Chuck and his late wife, Lois. When Link reappeared thirteen years later, there’d apparently been a bit of an adjustment period for them.

But now it was apparent that they loved each other. Chuck had stepped up where Link’s parents had failed, and Link left whatever his problems had been in LA to be on his best behavior for Chuck.

They looked ridiculously alike as well. Rhett once found them sitting on the patio together, and just happened to catch them with their heads turned at the same angle. It was like looking at two pictures of the same person, fifty years apart.

Rhett’s family situation wasn’t so easy. His parents hadn’t ever really said anything one way or the other about same sex relationships, but he knew they had other conservative views. He was pretty sure that the best case scenario would be them dismissing it as a phase. Rhett didn’t want to think about worst case scenarios.

In the meantime, he had college accommodations to figure out. Rhett ended up in a triple suite with a couple strangers, Mark from Lincoln, Nebraska and Harjeet from New Delhi. They seemed alright from the emails they’d been exchanging, to get to know each other and figure out who’d bring what. Rhett would be contributing a minifridge and a TV.

Link had his room assignment, too. He wasn’t in Rhett’s dorm, but at least his building was next door. In fact, looking at the campus map and the layouts of the dorms, Rhett was pretty sure he’d be able to see Link’s window from his suite. Link was on the third floor, though, while Rhett was on the ground floor, so they wouldn’t really be able to see each other. Even so, it would be nice to know he was there.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“I told Chuck not to say anything to your parents about it,” Link said. “You know, if he ever talks to them.”

“Thanks.” Rhett stared up at the rustling leaves above them. They were at a new part of the river, but Link hadn’t found anything but trash, so they ended up hanging out on shore together.

It was mid July and too hot to actually cuddle, so they compromised by sitting close enough for their shoulders to touch. Rhett had cold drinks in his little cooler, and when Link wasn’t looking, he pulled the tab off his can of soda and threw it in the river to frustrate some future metal detectorist.

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do about them,” Rhett said. He’d tried a couple times to subtly steer conversations with his parents towards same sex relationships, but he hadn’t really learned anything. It wasn’t like he could keep bringing the topic up without them getting suspicious, either.

“You just gotta ask, man.” Link’s hair stuck up in sweaty spikes and he had his blue sunglasses perched on this head. “I told you, say that you’ve been trying to decide if it’s right or wrong, and you want to know what they think.”

Rhett sighed. This wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation. Rhett’s next line was _What am I going to do if they say it’s wrong?_ But he didn’t really feel like going through the motions again.

“Yeah, I know,” Link said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.”

Rhett didn’t really have anything to say to that. His basketball scholarship would cover enough of his college expenses that if his parents pulled their support, he’d still be able to graduate without _too_ much debt. He didn’t think they’d be quite that opposed, but the fear was hard to shake.

If Chuck didn’t know, Rhett simply would have kept the relationship hidden. But he did know, and it seemed unfair to Rhett that he had to hide Link, like their relationship was something to be ashamed of. Link swore he didn’t mind and told Rhett to take his time, but Rhett still felt guilty.

“Maybe I’ll tell them once I’m at school,” Rhett said. “Over the phone, so I can hang up if they lose their minds.”

Link made a noncommittal little noise. “You wanna go back to my place? I could really go for some air conditioning.”

“Me too.” Rhett leaned over for a kiss before helping Link to his feet.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Rhett came downstairs after changing out of his work clothes. His mom had recently joined the church choir and was at practice, so today his dad was in the kitchen, making fajitas.

“How was work, Rhett?” his dad asked.

“Pretty much the same as always,” Rhett said. “There was a woman who tripped and hit her face on a table and knocked out both of her front teeth.”

Rhett’s dad grimaced. “That’s awful.” He snagged a slice of pepper out of the pan and tasted it.

“Yeah. She’s gonna have to get fake ones once she heals up.” Rhett grabbed a couple plates and a package of tortillas. His parents insisted on eating dinner together at the table every night, and Rhett had been setting the table since he was tall enough to reach it.

His dad brought the sizzling pan of steak and vegetables to the table and put it on a trivet. There was silence for a few minutes as they assembled their fajitas and started eating. Rhett definitely got his appetite from his dad.

“So we haven’t seen much of Link recently,” Rhett’s dad said after two fajitas. Link had become a regular guest to the McLaughlin dinners shortly after graduation. He got on well enough with Rhett’s parents, but Rhett noticed that he always retreated to his fade-into-the-background persona.

Now that they were in a relationship, though, they spent most of their time at Link’s house. Chuck might not understand their relationship, but at least he knew about it, and it wasn’t the end of the world if he happened to catch them kissing.

Rhett took a big bite of fajita so he’d have a little time to think before he answered. “Chuck’s been teaching me how to whittle,” he said when he swallowed. That was true. Chuck had wanted to teach Link, but he wasn’t interested. His shaky hands and hemophobia would have made him a bad choice anyway. Rhett was intrigued, though, so the three of them would sit out on the back patio, Chuck and Rhett with their wood and knives and Link with his laptop to research his metal detecting finds. 

“Really?” Rhett’s dad raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d be into something like that.”

“Yeah. I’m making a spoon,” Rhett said. “Like, a cooking spoon. Don’t tell Mom ‘cause I’m gonna give it to her if I don’t mess it up.”

“You got it.” His dad started assembling another fajita. “So what else have you and Link been up to?”

Alarm bells rang in Rhett’s head. “Uh, metal detecting mostly. Well, Link does most of it. I’m just along for the ride,” he said, hoping he sounded calm. “He found a Union belt buckle from the Civil War last weekend.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, it was really cool.” Rhett took another bite. “We just hang out and watch movies and stuff otherwise.”

“Mmm. Have you heard from Amanda since she got back?” Amanda B would always just be plain Amanda to Rhett’s parents.

Rhett shook his head. “We’re not really friends anymore, Dad.” Even though he’d know their friendship had withered away, it still hurt a little. 

“Yeah, I lost a lot of friends when I graduated, too,” his dad said. “It’s easy to be friends when you’re together all the time, you know? Friendships of convenience.”

“Yeah.” Rhett sighed and picked at a shred of steak on his plate.

“Guess Link’s not like that, though,” his dad remarked.

“Uh, no?” What the hell did _that_ mean? “I mean, I guess you’re right. We didn’t ever really hang out at school.” Rhett desperately, desperately wanted to change the subject. “Hey, are you going golfing with Uncle Dennis this weekend?”

Rhett’s ploy worked. The conversation switched directions, and he was safe for a little while longer.


	17. Chapter 17

They kept returning to the old swimming hole, even though Link had searched all the easy and obvious places. That wasn’t his main motivation for wanting to visit anymore.

The swimming hole was private. It wasn’t easy to get to it. There were no real paths or trails that led to it. It was the one place where they were able to truly be themselves without looking over their shoulders.

“I can’t believe there’s only a month left before school starts,” Link said from his perch on a shady rock. “It feels like no time at all.”

Rhett was lounging on a beach towel on the sandy shore. “Are you scared? To go to college, I mean.”

“No. Are you?”

“Kind of,” Rhett admitted. “It’s gonna be a big change.”

“I already had a big change.” Link climbed down off the rock and spread a towel next to Rhett’s. “You remember how short my hair was when I started at Central?”

“Yeah, it was like a crew cut.” Rhett had had his fair share of crew cuts over the years, usually during basketball season.

“I used to have long hair, like down to here--” Link gestured to his jaw. “And then bangs that sort of swooped over like this.”

“Wow.” Rhett tried to imagine it. “Do you have any pictures? Can I see?”

“Yeah, I’ll show you later,” Link said. “Anyway, my mom’s married to this guy Richard. They got married when I was fifteen, but he was around for a couple years before that. And like, he was okay while they were dating, like we both knew he wasn’t my dad and we were never gonna have a father/son relationship, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“So he moved in and they got married, and it was like he changed overnight. He got all authoritarian, like he was a drill sergeant or something, and he needed to whip me into shape. And my mom went along with it. I think that might have been the worst part. She just, like, emotionally abandoned me.”

“I’m sorry, Link. That sucks.”

“Yeah. And I wasn’t a bad kid, you know? I mean, I liked to smoke with my friends or whatever, but that’s not _bad_. But Richard and my mom treated me like a bad kid, so I sort of felt like if they were going to treat me like I was sneaking around their backs, I might as well do it.”

“And you did?”

“I did,” Link confirmed. “And I actually did fuck up pretty bad when I was sixteen, so then he _really_ came down hard on me. They took away the door to my room, they tracked my phone, they put a keylogger on my computer.”

“What the _fuck_.” Rhett’s parents had him use the Find My Phone function when he went out, but he was pretty sure they never actually looked at it.

“I know, it was fucked up. So we fought pretty much constantly, but Richard never did anything physical until February.”

Rhett was horrified. “He hurt you?”

“Not really. Um, I bleached my hair and dyed it lavender. It looked awesome, so of course Richard hated it and said I had to dye it back. I told him to go to hell, and that night when I fell asleep he came into my room with clippers and just went _bzzzt_.” Link swiped an imaginary set of clippers over his scalp. “Just buzzed off a big strip so I had to shave the rest off.”

“Holy _shit_.”

“Yep,” Link said. “So I got set up to move here, sold a bunch of my stuff, and moved out three weeks later. Anyway, that’s why I’m not worried about college.”

“Hey, look at me.” Rhett rolled over on his side to face Link, who did the same. “You are smart and brave and resourceful, and I am so proud of you.”

Link smiled bashfully and hid his flushed face in his hands. 

“Oh no you don’t!” Rhett pried Link’s hands away and kissed him. Rhett was there on the shore of the river he loved so much, with the person he loved just as much, and he wanted to stay there forever.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

“I think it’s done,” Rhett said. He handed the wooden spoon over to Chuck. It was a little lopsided and uneven, but not too bad. There was even an _M_ engraved on the handle above the bowl, on what Chuck told him was called the shoulders. Spoons had a lot of different parts, Rhett had learned. Stem, bowl, shoulders, drop, finial, heel. 

“Mmhmm, mmhmm,” Chuck hummed to himself as he inspected the spoon. “Not bad, not bad at all.” In the same amount of time that it had taken Rhett to make his simple spoon, Chuck had carved a spoon with a handle made of a four stranded openwork braid. He hadn’t done any planning or made any measurements, just picked up the knife and made a few marks on the virgin piece of wood. It was nothing short of magical to watch the shapes appear under his fingers.

“Now I sand it, right?” Rhett asked as he took the spoon back. He thwacked it against his thigh a couple times. “Man, when I was eight, my mom caught me out on the back deck with a box of matches lightin’ dead leaves on fire… that’s the only time she whupped me with a spoon.”

Link snickered from his place on the bench next to Rhett. “I bet you got spanked a lot, Rhett.”

“Not like that, I didn’t.” Rhett’s parents usually went for an _I’m so disappointed_ lecture with maybe a halfhearted swat to the butt, but nearly burning down the house was a lot more serious than pitching a fit in public or talking back to a teacher.

Chuck snorted. “Link, I don’t know if I whupped your daddy too much, or maybe I should have whupped him more, but he sure didn’t turn out right.” 

Rhett glanced over at Link. They had matching expressions of surprise. It was no secret that Chuck was disappointed with Charles, but he’d never come out and said it so clearly.

“I don’t think that was your fault,” Link said. “Some people are just--” He was cut off by his cell phone vibrating in his pocket. He pulled it out and raised his eyebrows. “Well, speaking of other people who are just… whatever. It’s my mom.”

“You gonna talk to her this time?” Chuck asked.

“Ugh, I guess.” Link swiped to answer and held the phone up to his ear. “What?”

Rhett couldn’t hear what the woman on the other end of the line said, but he could hear her tone of voice. It wasn’t nice.

“Yeah, I know what day it is.” Link got up off the bench and wandered off into the yard as he talked. “No. Why would I do that?” As he got farther away from the patio, Rhett couldn’t hear what he was saying, but Link’s body language was extremely agitated. He stomped around and gesticulated wildly.

Rhett glanced over at Chuck, who had an unhappy expression on his face. “Is he okay?” Rhett asked.

“Can’t rightly say,” Chuck replied. He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Never did like that woman.”

That was interesting. “Link’s mom? Why not?”

“Real determined, that gal. I don’t think gettin’ married was in her plans, but she got pregnant, and we all thought it was the right thing to do back then.” Chuck shook his head. “It wasn’t. She didn’t want to be a wife, she didn’t want to be a mother. Now don’t get me wrong, she loved Link, but it was against her will. Broke our hearts when she moved him away.”

“I’m sorry.” Inside the house, there were a few framed pictures of toddler Link with Chuck and his late wife Lois. He was their only grandchild, and Lois had passed away less than a year after Link and his mom moved to LA. Rhett couldn’t imagine how devastated Chuck must have been.

There was a frustrated yell from the back of the yard. Rhett and Chuck turned to see Link drop his phone in the grass in disgust. He stomped back towards the house, walked past them without stopping, and went inside. His expression was stormy and shut off. A moment later, Rhett heard his bedroom door slam.

“Uh.” Rhett turned to Chuck, wide eyed. He’d never seen Link that upset. “Should I… do you think I should go talk to him?”

Chuck looked at him as if Rhett were an idiot. “Yeah, okay,” Rhett said. He stood up and brushed the little curls of wood off himself as well as he could. There were a lot of them. He retrieved Link’s phone from the yard.

“Good luck,” Chuck said as Rhett opened the back door.

“Thanks.” Rhett thought he probably needed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't hit your kids.
> 
> Also, @arentiaclevergirl on tumblr suggested calling this story "Whittle Me This" and I think we should all appreciate that.


	18. Chapter 18

There was a plaque on Link’s bedroom door that read _CHARLES_ in gold lettering. Rhett had never asked Link how he felt about sharing his legal name with his father and grandfather. It was rarely so in-your-face as it was right now.

“Link?” Rhett knocked under the plaque. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah.” Link was flat on his back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. Rhett closed the door behind him and sat on the bed.

“I got your phone.”

Link made a face. “Ugh, you can keep it. Actually--” he pushed himself up on his elbows and turned to Rhett. “Can you block her? I can’t do it.”

Rhett turned Link’s phone over and over against his leg. “Like, you don’t know how? Or you’re emotionally unable to?”

“Both, I guess.” Link climbed onto the bed next to Rhett and took the phone. He unlocked it and scrolled through the messages. “So, my mom called for two reasons,” Link began.

“Uh-huh.”

“The first was because I guess someone she knows saw us at the river--not the swimming hole!” Link clarified as he saw Rhett’s alarmed expression. “Just the regular spot. Anyway, they sent her a message on Facebook and I guess she’s been holding onto that for a while. Aaaannnd...this is the second reason.” He selected a text and held it out to Rhett.

Text from: Egg Donor

Egg Donor: at least you won’t be able to knock this one up

“Um, what?” Rhett looked up from the phone. He felt a little sick. “Did you really…?”

“I did really,” Link confirmed. His expression was somewhere between ashamed and exasperated. “Um, my sophomore year, my girlfriend Kelsey…”

Rhett recognized the name. “She’s the one that was really into tennis, right?”

“Yeah, and really into breaking up and getting back together and… “ Link heaved a sigh. “I mean, I wasn’t much better, but when the school year ended I told her that we were done, for real this time, and I didn’t want to hear from her anymore. So she sent me a picture of a positive pregnancy test.”

“Oh, _shit_.” Rhett felt a frisson of sympathetic fear. He figured LA was probably a bit more permissive of teenagers having sex, but his background of purity culture and abstinence only sex education made it feel like the ultimate taboo to Rhett, even without a pregnancy.

“Right? I told her to quit lying to me to try and get me back, but she swore it was real and, um, it was.” Link dropped his head into his hands. “I can’t even tell you what that was like, Rhett. We always used protection… I had to tell my mom eventually. And Richard. Fuck!” He laughed bitterly. “I never felt more scared or more stupid in my life.”

“So what happened?” Rhett asked. He wasn’t sure what to think. Link had never mentioned any of this before.

“Well, Kelsey wanted the kid. Like, she wouldn’t even talk about abortion or adoption. And I just… I mean yeah, her body her choice, but what about _me_?” Link held out his hands helplessly as his voice broke a little. “I was supposed to go to this eight week long program in Virginia to restore a Revolutionary War fortress and my mom and Richard cancelled it and had me get a job instead.”

“That sounds like it would have been really cool,” Rhett said. Link liked finding gold and silver, sure, but relics of the past were his absolute favorite thing to find with the metal detector. Rural North Carolina was a lot better for that than the beaches of LA.

“Yeah, it would have.” Link’s voice was bitter. He looked down at the floor and Rhett couldn’t see his expression. “But instead I worked at Jamba Juice and saved all my money for _the baby_ ,” he sang in a sing-song voice. “Even though it might not have been mine, even though I didn’t want to be involved… anyway, Kelsey had a miscarriage a couple months later.”

The abrupt end of the story left Rhett a little stunned. “Oh, wow. So what did you do?”

Link sighed. “I mean, what could I do? I couldn’t pretend that I felt anything but relief. I mean, I felt guilty because I didn’t feel bad, but it was like I’d been set free, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“Kelsey took it really hard, though. She blocked me pretty soon afterwards and I don’t blame her a bit. She changed schools, too. I think she’s doing okay now, though. We still have a bunch of mutual friends on Facebook so I see little updates here and there.” Link looked up at Rhett for the first time since he began his story. “So I hope you don’t think I’m a piece of shit for that, or for not telling you before, or whatever.”

“I don’t think you’re a piece of shit.” Rhett reached over and pulled Link to his chest. “I don’t think anyone in that story is a piece of shit except your mom and stepdad.”

Link relaxed against him and made a disgusted noise. “He’s not my dad. I don’t have a dad.”

“You have a grandad,” Rhett pointed out.

“True,” Link conceded. “Anyway, today is the anniversary of Kelsey’s miscarriage, which is why my mother so kindly called to remind me.”

“Oh, here.” Rhett leaned over and grabbed Link’s phone. “I blocked her.”

“Thanks.” Link dropped the phone onto his little bedside table next to his Kindle and pulled Rhett into a kiss. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” They fell over sideways onto the bed. Rhett ended up on top of Link, propped up on his elbows. “She’s right, though.”

“Who’s right?” Link asked, distracted.

“Your mom!” Rhett grinned down at Link. “You can’t get me pregnant.”

“Oh my _god_.” Link put a hand on Rhett’s face and pushed him away. “You’re the worst.”

“No, you love me.” Their disagreement turned into a scuffle with a lot of kisses and giggles that lasted until Chuck banged on the door.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Link’s story had a profound effect on Rhett. It challenged a lot of things he’d taken for granted, growing up as he did in a fairly conservative culture. He was having a really difficult time reconciling his relationship with Link, Link’s relationship with Kelsey, and what he’d been taught about relationships growing up.

He didn’t have anyone to talk about it with, either. Rhett discussed it a little with Link, but he really needed an uninvolved third party. That excluded Chuck, and Rhett’s parents were completely out of the question.

There were only two weeks left before they went off to college. It was Friday, and Rhett’s last day at work. His parents were attending some grown up get together (Rhett hadn’t really paid attention, so all he really knew was that they’d be gone until late), so he took himself to the Chinese/Mexican buffet for dinner.

The hostess who thought he was an idiot was at the entrance. Rhett paid his fee and sidled past. He had a plate filled with orange chicken and plantain things when he heard someone say his name behind him. Rhett turned and saw his chemistry teacher, Ms. Svoboda.

“Oh, hey Ms. Svoboda!” he said, unsure what the etiquette was when one met a former teacher at a buffet. “Um, what’s up?”

She laughed. “Not much. I’ve been finalizing lesson plans. And please, call me Connie.”

Rhett thought about that for a second. Respect for teachers had been drilled into him from a young age. “I honestly don’t know if I can do that.”

“That’s fine, whatever you’re comfortable with,” she said. “You’re dressed nice. Do you have a job?”

“Well, it just ended.” They made small talk for a moment, then Ms. Svoboda asked Rhett if he wanted to eat together.

“No pressure,” she assured him. “I’d understand if you wanted to eat alone, but I like catching up with former students.”

“No, that sounds nice,” Rhett said, surprising himself. They got a booth and Rhett told her about his job and his college plans. “And, um, you remember Link who came in at the end of the year?”

Ms. Svoboda laughed. “Rhett, I’ve been teaching for almost forty years and I’ve never had two students go to the emergency room at the same time. Of course I remember him.”

“Okay, well…” Rhett poked his plantain thing with his chopsticks. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course.”

“He’s, um, he’s my boyfriend and my parents don’t know. I don’t know what they’d do.” Rhett stared down at his plate miserably. He hadn’t realized how much stress he’d been carrying until just then.

“Oh, Rhett,” Ms. Svoboda said. Over the next half hour, Rhett told her everything--how much he adored Link, how apprehensive he was about his parents finding out, how conflicted he was about Link’s relationship with Kelsey.

“Mm,” Ms. Svoboda said thoughtfully. “Do you think Link did anything wrong there?”

“Not really,” Rhett answered. “Except sleeping with her.”

Ms. Svoboda sighed. “You know, I’ve always been very opposed to abstinence only sex ed and purity culture in general. Did you sign one of those pledges your freshman year?”

“Yeah.” It was a pledge to remain pure until marriage. Rhett recalled some sort of _true love waits_ verbiage, but that was about it.

“And do you plan on following through with it?”

“I…” Rhett paused. Ms. Svoboda raised an eyebrow at him. It was easy to make a pledge when you were fourteen, especially when no one looked your way and the whole thing was entirely hypothetical. Even later, when you were older, it wasn’t hard to imagine waiting when everyone around you planned on waiting, too (although Rhett was unclear on what was too far. Getting naked together? _Wanting_ to get naked together? Getting off together? Touching? If touching counted, Rhett and Emma Rose had already broken their pledges).

But then there was Link. Marriage wasn’t even on their radar. They were only eighteen, after all. Rhett knew that he wanted to be with Link, though. What exactly that entailed was still up in the air, at least when it came to sex, but Rhett couldn’t imagine waiting indefinitely. There was already a lot of dry humping, and in a couple weeks Link would have a single in the dorms… “I don’t know,” Rhett admitted.

Ms. Svoboda nodded, like that was the answer she expected. “All I can say is to communicate and don’t do anything you’re uncomfortable with. If he’s worth being with, he’ll understand.”

“I think he’s a little gun-shy ‘cause… you know.” Rhett could tell he was flushed red, but apparently his need to talk it out trumped the awkwardness of discussing his probable sex like with a teacher.

“Well, that won’t be a problem in your case,” Ms. Svoboda said with a grin.

Rhett just dropped his head into his hands and groaned.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to let everyone know how much I appreciate all your comments, even if I don't respond to them. Thank you.

Rhett ended up spending nearly two hours at the buffet with Ms. Svoboda, talking about all the things that had been bothering him. He tried to apologize a few times, but she assured him that she didn’t mind. “I wouldn’t have been a teacher for this long if I didn’t care about young people,” she pointed out.

He felt so much lighter and freer after the conversation. Ms. Svoboda made so many good points (there was a big difference in maturity between fifteen/sixteen and eighteen, Link had been responsible enough to use protection, Rhett was a completely different person than Kelsey, etc, etc) that hadn’t even occurred to Rhett. He still wasn’t ready to have relations, but the thought didn’t scare him quite as much as it did before.

So that just left telling his parents.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Rhett opened his closet and groaned. It was completely crammed full of _stuff_. Clothes, shoes, sports equipment, old toys… it was going to take forever to sort through it. His mom insisted that he clear it out before leaving so she could store all his other belongings that were currently scattered all over the house. Rhett had been avoiding it all summer, but there were only ten days left before he went to college, so the time had come.

“Aw, you can do it,” Link said from where he lay sprawled on Rhett’s bed. “Just keep the stuff that sparks joy.”

There was a stuffed whale within easy reach, so Rhett grabbed it and whipped it at Link, who shrieked as it hit him in the face. He threw it back at Rhett and missed.

“Easy for you to say,” Rhett grumbled as he put the whale in his “to donate” box. “Most of your stuff is already packed up.” Link had acquired a few things since moving in with his grandfather, but for the most part, everything he owned fit in three moving boxes and a suitcase.

“I wonder what my mom did with all the crap I left behind,” Link said thoughtfully. “Probably just got rid of it. I sold all the good stuff before I left.”

“Do you ever miss her?” Rhett asked. He pulled a bunch of hangers off the clothes rack and dumped them on the floor to sort through. “I mean, it can’t all have been bad.”

Link picked up a red flannel shirt that Rhett had dropped in the donate box and held it up to his face for a long moment. Finally he said, “When I was little and couldn’t sleep, she’d sing me this song about _the Sisters of Mercy, I hope you run into them soon, don’t turn on your light, you can read their address by the moon_.” Rhett had never heard Link sing before, and he was struck by how lovely Link’s singing voice was, untrained but pure. Link held up the shirt. “Can I have this?”

Rhett blinked as he came back to reality. “Uh, yeah. You can have anything you want out of there.” Link pulled on the flannel shirt and smiled.

Three hours later, the closet was mostly empty. Rhett left all the things he wanted to keep piled on the floor to deal with later, and Link helped him haul the boxes of things to donate out to his car. They drove to the thrift store to drop it off and then spent an enjoyable half hour trying to find the weirdest t-shirt possible. Link was completely thrilled to find a shirt that said LINK in big bold letters underneath the silhouette of a galloping horse, and bought it even though it was far too big.

Rhett drove Link home after that, and they shared a very long, very thorough goodbye kiss before Link got out of the car and vanished into his house. It made him think about having relations, as Chuck put it. Rhett had been thinking a _lot_ about having relations since his talk with Ms. Svoboda. He was still astonished that he’d managed to have a discussion of his (nonexistent as of yet) sex life with a teacher and hadn’t died of embarrassment, but he was glad he did.

Rhett kind of hoped to find the little purity pledge card in the closet, but no dice. He wanted to tear it up or burn it or something, because he’d decided that he wasn’t going to be bound by it. For one thing, the same set of beliefs that produced the purity pledge branded him and Link as sinners damned to hell, and if that was the case, who not take full advantage of the situation?

Also, he really wanted to have relations with Link. Rhett wasn’t sure exactly how that would work (How did people choose who would be on the top or on the bottom? By flipping a coin?), but he wanted to figure it out.

Rhett drove home on autopilot, consumed with thoughts of getting Link naked and trying… what? Anything and everything.

He was going to have to have some relations with himself when he got home.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Rhett was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice his parents waiting at the table with worried expressions on their faces. It wasn’t until his dad spoke that Rhett came back to reality.

“Have a seat, Rhett.” His dad gestured to the chair across from him. “We need to have a talk.”

 _They know_. All of Rhett’s fantasies vanished in an instant. He could barely breathe. It was like all the air had been sucked out of the room. “Oh.”

~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~

Rhett sat at the table across from his parents. It was a position he’d been in hundreds, thousands of times before, but never like this. He clasped his trembling hands between his knees and curled up into himself. It was hard to make himself invisible, big as he was, but he tried.

No one spoke. Rhett was going to throw up. He was going to explode. He was going to run screaming from the room. He was going to spontaneously combust.

Finally, his mom broke the silence. “Honey, we know about Link,” she said.

“What _about_ Link?” Rhett wasn’t going to say anything to incriminate himself.

“You’re…” his parents glanced at each other. “You’re fooling around with him.”

“I’m not!”

“Rhett James, do not lie to me,” his mom said. “I saw you kiss him while you were loading up the car.”

So stupid, to do that in the middle of the street. “That’s it! That’s all we’ve done!” Rhett protested, knowing full well that the issue wasn’t how far he’d gone with Link.

“Rhett.” His dad used his most serious voice. “Why are you doing this?”

“What?”

“Don’t be obtuse. What you’re doing is wrong. It’s a sin, and it’s stupid and dangerous,” his dad said. “It could have very serious ramifications for your future. I know we didn’t raise you to behave like this.”

Rhett looked from parent to parent, open mouthed in disbelief. “You _like_ Link.”

His mom sighed. “He’s a nice boy, but…”

She might feel differently if she knew about Kelsey. “But what?” _Say it, you cowards_.

Rhett’s parents glanced at each other. His dad was the one who spoke next. “I know your feelings aren’t a choice, but your behavior is,” he said. “And let me be clear: we don’t support your decision to have a homosexual relationship.”

There it was. He was suddenly furious. “Have I,” Rhett began. “ _Ever_ done anything to make you not trust me? I’ve never been in any real trouble, I’ve always kept my grades up, I got a good scholarship… and you’re upset that I fell in love with someone you actually like?”

“Rhett--”

“So what now?” Rhett cut in, throwing up his hands. “Are you gonna disown me? Throw me out? Quit paying for school?” He glared at them, furious and close to tears.

The room was silent as the questions settled over them. There it was: how deep did their convictions lie? Where would Rhett’s parents draw the line? Was their love conditional?

“Of course not,” his mom said finally. “I know you might not believe it right now, but we just want the best for you. We love you, Rhett.”

“Link loves me, too. And I love him!” Rhett was grasping at straws. He knew they didn’t care.

“Rhett, honey--”

“Stop.” Rhett stood up so abruptly that his chair fell over backwards. “I knew you’d be like this. I _knew_. I’ve spent my whole life being the kind of son you want. Can’t you just let me have this one thing?”

“Rhett!”

Rhett pulled his phone out of his pocket and slammed it down on the table so hard that he could tell he broke the screen. His parents both flinched. He spun on his heel and walked out the door.


	20. Chapter 20

It wasn’t quite as late as it had been the first time Rhett went to Link’s house, but he stood in front of the door and rapped the brass knocker just as he had then. A minute later, he heard the knob turn.

“... at this time of night?” Chuck grumbled as he pulled the door open. “Well, hey Rhett--Jesus Christ, boy, what’s wrong?”

“Can I stay here tonight?” Rhett blurted desperately.

Chuck reached out and grabbed Rhett’s shoulder to pull him into the house. “Git in here, git in here.” Rhett stood in the vestibule, lost. His plan only went as far as _Go to LInk’s_ and now he didn’t know what to do.

There was a clatter of footsteps on the stairs and Link appeared. “Rhett? What are you doing here?” He had on his blue sleeved baseball shirt with messy hair and no glasses. Link was the most beautiful person Rhett had ever seen, and Rhett knew he would choose Link every time, no matter what. He burst into tears.

“Whoa. Okay.” Link was taken aback, and he rushed over to wrap Rhett in his arms. Chuck watched with a concerned look on his face. “What’s wrong?”

“My parents…” Rhett managed to choke out before he burst into another sob.

“Fuck,” Link muttered. He looked over to Chuck for help. Together, they managed to get Rhett settled on the sectional couch. Link got him a box of tissues and Chuck got him a shot of whiskey.

“Can I have one?” Link asked as Chuck handed the glass to Rhett.

“No.”

Eventually, after a lot of tissues, they got the whole story out of Rhett. He sat miserably, head in his hands, wrapped in Link’s arms. “It doesn’t sound completely hopeless, I guess,” Link said hesitantly.

“They’re god damn idiots,” Chuck said,shaking his head from the other end of the couch. “You couldn’t ask for a better kid--”

“Hey!” Link protested.

Chuck ignored him. “And they want to throw that away just because you’re a queer?”

Rhett looked up and furrowed his brow at that. “Uh…”

Link rolled his eyes. “Don’t say ‘a queer’, that’s a slur,” he said. “It’s just ‘queer’.”

“Hell, what’s the difference?”

“Um.” Link tried to figure out how to articulate it. “ _Queer_ is an adjective, I guess? Like, you could be short and blonde and hungry and queer, but calling someone ‘a queer’, uh…”

“It’s, like, reducing someone to nothing but their sexuality?” Rhett said hesitantly, and sighed. “Like my parents are doing right now.”

Link hugged him tighter and muttered, “Assholes”.

“Queer,” Chuck repeated to himself. He pushed himself off the couch with a groan, both knees popping loudly. “Rhett, you can stay here tonight, but you’re sleeping on the couch, understand? I don’t want you in Link’s room.”

That was about what Rhett expected. The sectional would be more comfortable than trying to share Link’s twin bed, anyway. “Thank you,” he said thickly.

“I got an errand to run,” Chuck said. “Get him set up with a pillow and some blankets, will ya, Link?”

“Okay.”

“And no funny business!” Chuck said over his shoulder as he left. The two boys sat on the couch silently until the door clicked shut.

“I’m not really in the mood for funny business,” Link said sadly.

Rhett snorted, surprising himself. “Me neither.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The upstairs bathroom had floral wallpaper with a striped shower curtain that didn’t quite match. Rhett washed his face with cold water and stared at himself in the mirror. Other than his red, puffy eyes, he looked the same as he had earlier in the day--hair long enough that it was starting to curl (which was new. He’d never had it this long before, and didn’t really know what to do with it), enough of a beard that he felt justified in actually calling it a beard, and a well loved (read: threadbare) Central basketball t-shirt.

“Ugh.” He dried his face with a towel that didn’t match anything. Rhett was sure that when Link’s grandmother had been alive, _everything_ had matched. He changed into the pineapple pajama pants that Link lent him, which were far too short but were also extremely soft, and made his way back downstairs.

“Oh wow,” he said when he saw the couch. “You went all out, didn’t you? I didn’t even know you could make a couch up like a bed.” He’d been expecting a pillow and a blanket, maybe two, but Link had a sheet tucked over the cushions, a top sheet, a blanket, and two pillows. The top sheet and blanket were even turned down, like a fancy hotel.

Link looked mildly offended. “We’re not passing out drunk tonight. You deserve it, anyway.”

“I guess.” Rhett plopped himself down at the foot of his “bed”, which was really the end of the couch. “Where do you think Chuck went?”

“Uh, pretty sure he went to yell at your parents,” Link said. He grabbed Rhett’s hand and pulled him toward the head of the bed. “Come lie down with me.”

Rhett let himself be led. “Oh god, is he really?” He had no idea how his parents would react to something like that. He had no idea how his parents would react to anything, anymore.

Link pushed an unprotesting Rhett down into the bed and then climbed in after him. “He’s got some pretty strong views about parents kicking their kids out.”

“Yeah, I bet he doe--ow!” Rhett wheezed as Link inadvertently elbowed him in the ribcage. “God, it’s like trying to cuddle with the world’s clumsiest skeleton.”

“Sorry, sorry.” They ended up with Link on his back and Rhett lying partially on top of him, his face tucked in the crook of Link’s neck. He could smell fresh laundry, shampoo, and clean skin, and it made him tear up again.

“Link, what am I gonna _do_?” Rhett’s voice broke and he pressed his face into Link’s shoulder. “I didn’t… I didn’t realize I’d have to choose.”

Link sucked in a breath and stiffened, just a little. Rhett rushed to reassure him. “I’m gonna choose you, every time.” He raised his face enough to kiss Link’s neck. Rhett could feel a little stubble, and was overwhelmed with how much he loved Link. There was no one else like Link, masculine and beautiful, delicate and strong. “Link, I _swear_.”

“I know. I’d choose you, too.” Link ran his fingers through Rhett’s curls. Rhett shivered as goosebumps popped up on his arms. “But even if you didn’t… they’d still know. Can’t unring that bell.”

“Yeah.” Rhett yawned hugely. “I wanna go to sleep so I don’t have to think about this anymore.”

“You want me to stay?”

Rhett smiled, just a tiny bit. “Sounds like funny business to me.”

“Look, Chuck said you couldn’t stay in my room, but he didn’t say anything about me being on the couch,” Link said primly. “But we should probably change positions so I can get up without waking you up when he gets home.”

They switched positions so that Link could easily slip away. “I love you,” he whispered as he kissed Rhett goodnight. 

“Love you, too.”

“It’s gonna be okay.”

Rhett didn’t say anything. He just sighed and closed his eyes.


	21. Chapter 21

There was always a moment of confusion upon waking up in a strange place. Rhett slowly became aware that he wasn’t in his own bed. He was on the sectional, at Link’s house, because he’d run away from a confrontation with his parents.

Rhett opened one eye warily. The living room looked the same as it always did, so he opened his other eye and pushed himself up. The “bed” that Link had so nicely last night was completely torn apart. The sheet was halfway pulled off and one of the pillows was flung on the floor. Apparently he’d spent the night tossing and turning.

“Hey,” Link mumbled from the other end of the sectional, where he sat with a bowl of cereal. He swallowed and asked, “You feeling better?”

“I dunno.” Rhett still felt like shit, but not quite the same as last night. He didn’t feel as desperately panicked as he had then, but he was still scared and angry. Later, he’d realize that he was also grieving the loss of his relationship with his parents. Even if they came around, there would still be a scar. “Did Chuck really go talk to them last night?”

“Yep.” Link scooped up another spoonful of cereal.

Rhett groaned and dropped his head into his hands. He couldn’t imagine his parents responding well to an angry lecture.

“No, dude, I think it went okay.” The slurping noise that Link made as he drank the milk from the bowl made Rhett want to fling a pillow at his head. “You want some coffee or anything?”

“I wanna brush my teeth.” And shower, and put on fresh clothes, but that would have to wait.

“Yeah, about that…” Link grimaced. “I tried to find a spare toothbrush for you, but there weren’t any, so, um, you’re gonna have to use mine.”

“Oh, _gross_.” Rhett had never considered using someone else’s toothbrush, but now he couldn’t think of anything more disgusting.

“I know! But _why_ is it so gross, I wonder? I mean, yeah, if we were just friends, but… we kiss?” He held up his hands in helpless bewilderment.

Rhett couldn’t deal with that kind of philosophical question so soon after waking up. “Whatever,” he mumbled as he stumbled off to the bathroom.

Link’s toothbrush was the wrong size and shape, and his toothpaste tasted wrong and had a weird texture, but Rhett felt marginally more human after using it. He also helped himself to Link’s deodorant and comb (or maybe the comb was Chuck’s? Apparently, sharing a comb was much more acceptable than sharing a toothbrush).

Chuck was back from wherever he’d been by the time Rhett came downstairs. He and Link were sitting at the little table in the chicken kitchen, talking quietly. They stopped and looked up as Rhett walked in.

“You’re talking about me, aren’t you?” he asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Well, _yeah_ ,” Link said.

Rhett sat down across from Chuck and took a sip of his coffee. It wasn’t very good, but it was hot and caffeinated. “Did you really go talk to my parents last night?”

“Yup.” Chuck took a sip of his own coffee.

“What did you say? What did _they_ say?” Rhett’s stomach clenched in anxiety. He gripped his coffee mug tightly with both hands. Link reached over and peeled one away to hold it. Rhett squeezed his hand.

“Well,” Chuck said. “I just asked what their end game was.”

Rhett furrowed his brow. “What?”

“He means, do they want you in their lives or not,” Link said. “You know, like mine.” There was a little note of bitterness in his voice. Link didn’t seem to care one way or the other about his dad, given that they’d never really had a relationship, but Rhett knew that Link missed his mom, even if he wouldn’t admit it.

“Oh. What’d they say?”

Chuck grunted and took a sip of his coffee. “Said they didn’t raise a sinner, and I said they raised you so I guess what you did can’t have been a sin.”

Rhett barked out of a laugh, surprising himself. “Bet my dad didn’t like that. He hates smart-asses.”

“I figured. We had a good conversation after that, though.” Chuck lifted his mug, discovered it was empty, and refilled it. “I told ‘em what it was like to lose a kid--” he indicated Link with a nod of his head. “--and I couldn’t imagine doing it on purpose.”

“Yeah…” It hurt, more than Rhett could possibly articulate, to think that his parents had even considered it for a moment.

“They’re scared, mostly. They’re worried how their church friends will react to them havin’ a gay son, and they’re worried about what will happen to you if you’re gay.”

“I’m not gay,” Rhett said. “At least, I don’t _think_ so…” He hadn’t figured out labels yet.

“Having a boyfriend is pretty gay,” Link pointed out.

“So are _you_ gay?” Rhett fired back. He was genuinely curious. Having sex with a girl didn’t prove anything one say or the other. Infuriatingly, Link just shrugged. Rhett opened his mouth to demand answers, but Chuck cleared his throat.

“As I was saying. Rhett, your parents don’t really know anything about queer… people. Is that right, queer people?”

“Yeah,” Link said. “But like… you didn’t either.” He turned to Rhett. “He had to go to the library and ask the librarian to help him find books.”

“Boy…” Chuck reached over and cuffed Link gently on the back of the head. “I wasn’t ‘bout to lose you again. I had to change my ways.”

Rhett stared down into his cup of coffee, which was now lukewarm and even more disgusting than it had been before. “Do you think…?”

Chuck took a long, thoughtful sip of coffee. “I think there’s a good chance.”

“Oh thank god.” Rhett collapsed onto the table, so relieved he could cry. “Thank you so much, Chuck.”

Chuck patted him on the shoulder. “You’re a good kid. Link seems to like you well enough, too.”

“Yeah, I do.” Link lifted Rhett’s hand up and kissed the back of it, and for the first time since his dad told him to take a seat last night, Rhett felt like everything might turn out fine.


	22. Chapter 22

“You’re sure you don’t want me to come?” Link asked.

“Yeah.” Rhett was headed back to his house to get some of his stuff. There was only a little more than a week before he’d be moving into the dorm, and he wasn’t sure where he’d be staying until then. He was sure, however, that he’d be staying with Link and Chuck again for at least that evening, and that he would absolutely not be using Link’s toothbrush in the morning. “They’re at work. It’ll be fine.”

Link sat on the front step and rested his chin in his hands, an unhappy expression on his face. “What if they aren’t?”

Rhett shrugged. “If I see their cars, I’ll just drive by. And I’ll text you when I get my new phone.” Link had written his number down on a little scrap of paper, and Rhett had it tucked away in his wallet. He leaned over to kiss Link. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.” Link stayed on the step, looking worried, until Rhett was out of view.

It was a drive he’d made dozens of times since graduation, but Rhett had never felt so nervous and tightly wound as he did when he pulled up in front of his house. It looked the same as it always did--potted plants on the porch, big tree shading the yard, decorative shutters that didn’t actually close--but it was like he’d never seen it before. The driveway was empty, so he parked and let himself in.

The house was too quiet, and it gave him the creeps. Rhett went up to his room and turned on some music, louder than his parents ever let him. The duffle bag he used when the basketball team traveled for games was still piled in the middle of the floor with the rest of the stuff from his closet, so he grabbed it and started filling it up.

“Rhett?”

“Gah!” Rhett jumped and whirled around. His mom stood in the doorway, wringing her hands nervously. “Mom! You’re supposed to be at work!”

“I called in sick,” she explained. “I just ran to the store, and I came back and saw your car…”

“I’m almost done,” Rhett said. “I’ll be gone in a minute.” He turned back to his packing.

“Honey…” his mom sighed. “Can I come in?”

“Depends on if you’re gonna call me a sinner or not.”

“ _Rhett_.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Rhett moved his bag over so she could sit. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall next to the closet, waiting.

“Chuck Neal came over last night,” his mom began.

“I know, he told me this morning.”

She nodded, like she’d expected that. “He told us about why Link came to live with him.”

“Oh, ‘cause his dad’s an asshole?”

“Rhett, _language_.”

Rhett rolled his eyes. “Really, mom?”

His mom held up her hands. “Okay, okay… anyway, Chuck said that they were driving back to his place, Link asked him, ‘What would you do if I _was_ gay?’ Only, he didn’t say ’gay’.”

It was interesting, Rhett thought, that his mom wouldn’t use a slur. “I didn’t know that.” It didn’t surprise him, though. Link was a planner. Of course he’d want to know if he should start making an exit strategy.

“Oh, really?” His mom raised her eyebrows. 

“No. What did Chuck say?”

“He said, he knew he had to make a decision, and he knew what it had to be if he didn’t want to lose Link again.”

That didn’t surprise Rhett, either, but there was one detail that did. “He told Chuck he was gay?”

His mom shook her head. “No, after Chuck said he’d do his best to learn more about it, Link said he wasn’t gay, he just needed to know where Chuck stood.”

 _Sounds like something a gay guy might say_ , Rhett thought. “So what did you think after he told you that story?”

“Rhett, you know you were a blessing.” Rhett nodded. His mother had had three miscarriages before he was born, and was unable to have any more children afterwards. “So when I realized we might drive you away…” Her voice broke and she wiped her eyes. “Sorry.”

Rhett pressed his lips together. “So what the hell were you thinking last night?”

“Oh, honey, you know your dad. He just thinks in black and white.” That was very true. It drove Rhett crazy. “It’s hard for him.”

“So where does this leave me?” Rhett asked. “I’m not going to break up with Link, and even if I did, I’d still be… queer.” He wasn’t sure how to label himself. _Queer_ was a useful catch-all term.

His mom sighed again. “Well, you’re going off to college in a few days, so we’ll all have time apart to calm down and think.”

“Yeah.” Rhett was incredibly grateful that he had somewhere to go.

“Of course, we’ll expect you to keep your grades up, not get in trouble, go to class…”

Rhett rolled his eyes for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Mom, you’d expect that even I was dating a girl, or single.”

She laughed. “True.”

“Will you… can I come back?” Rhett blurted. “Not tonight, but maybe in a couple days… I don’t want to leave for school without seeing you and dad. Even if you’re mad at me.”

“We’re not mad at you, honey.”

“ _Feels_ like you’re mad at me.” Rhett zipped his bag closed and slung it onto his shoulder. “I’m staying with Link again tonight.” He saw the expression on his mom’s face and guessed what she was worried about. “I’m sleeping on the couch.”

“Honey…”

“I’m gonna go buy a new phone,” Rhett said. “And my own phone plan.” It seemed like an important step to independence. 

“Text me so I have your number?” His mom gave him a wobbly smile. Rhett nodded, and she held her arms out for a hug. “I still love you, honey.”

Rhett burst into tears. He sat on the bed next to his mom, and she rubbed his back just like she did when he was little. “It’s gonna be okay, honey. I promise”

He didn’t say anything, just let her comfort him until he stopped crying.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Rhett skipped a stone across the swimming hole, trying to beat his prior record of five skips. Link sat on the shore, legs drawn up and arms wrapped around them. His metal detecting gear sat piled next to him, unused.

“When did you know?” Rhett asked without turning around.

“That I was into guys?” Link asked, as if Rhett could be thinking about anything else.

“Yeah.” Rhett hissed in disappointment as his stone sank after four skips.

Link shrugged, even though Rhett still had his back turned. “Forever, I guess. But when I was in middle school, I decided that I was just going to keep it secret. At least until I was older, anyway. It seemed, you know, easier.”

“Yeah, I feel that.” Rhett threw another stone, which sank without skipping even once. He turned to face Link for the first time. “So what changed?”

Link smiled one of his crooked little half smiles. “Well, I was trying to keep it to myself, but you made a move.”

“Oh.”

“But if you hadn’t, I might have, eventually,” Link confessed.

Rhett’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?” It seemed unlikely, given how Link had panicked when Rhett kissed him.

“Rhett.” Link shook his head a little in disbelief. “You’re smart and funny and gorgeous, and you respected my whole ‘don’t make friends with me’ thing, even though it was totally obvious that you wanted to.”

“Oh, really?” That was a little disappointing. Rhett thought he’d played it cool, but apparently not.

Link rolled his eyes. “You stared at me _all_ the time. You broke that glass in chem lab because you couldn’t stop looking at me.”

“Yeah, okay, guilty.” Rhett threw one last stone before coming over to Link. He sighed as he sat down. “My dad texted me last night. He wants me to come over to talk.” It had been three days since Rhett left home. He was still sleeping on Chuck’s couch for now, but he still wanted to go back home before school started.

“You gonna do it?” Link asked.

“Yeah.”

“You scared?”

“Yeah.” It didn’t bother him to admit that to Link.

“That’s real bravery, to do something even though you’re scared,” Link said.

“I guess.” Rhett picked up the pinpointer and poked it into the sand. Link reached over and turned it on. Immediately, it started beeping. Rhett carefully started sweeping the sand away, and found the object buried about an inch deep.

“What is it?” Link asked.

“Um.” Rhett picked it up and brushed it off. “A penny.” He turned it over. “Wheat ear.”

“It was heads up?”

“Yeah.”

Link gave him a grin. “It’s a good luck sign!”

Rhett scoffed, but he tucked the penny away in his pocket anyway.


	23. Chapter 23

Rhett’s mom tried to lure him over to have dinner by making pulled pork, and he was tempted, but the thought of how awkward that dinner would be overruled his craving. Instead, he showed up after dinner. This had two benefits: he could leave whenever he wanted, and his mom would send him away with a Tupperware of pulled pork. 

“Why don’t we go into my office?” his dad said after Rhett’s mom hugged him in greeting.

“O… kay.” His dad only had very serious talks in his office. Rhett hadn’t been in there since the summer before his junior year, when he caused a fender bender shortly after getting his license. There had been a very long lecture about how driving was a privilege, not a right, and Rhett needed to figure that out and blah blah blah.

The office was a little room off the living room. The door was kept closed at all times. Inside, there were stacks of books, journals, and paper piled on every available surface. Rhett had once pointed out how hypocritical it was for his dad to insist Rhett clean his room when the office was such a mess. He got grounded for two weeks, which just confirmed how right he was.

Predictably, there was a stack of books in the guest chair. Rhett’s dad picked them up, looked around, and put them on the floor next to the desk. Rhett sat without being asked. He folded his hands in his lap as his dad settled into his own chair, hoping he didn’t look as nervous as he felt.

His dad turned his chair and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “So, Rhett.”

“Yeah?”

“Your mother and I have been talking a lot over the past few days.”

“I know. She told me.”

Rhett’s dad put his hands in his lap and sighed. “I don’t approve of what you’re doing.”

“You’ve made that abundantly clear.” Rhett never would have spoken to his dad like that before, but things had changed between them.

“That being said, we’re going to give you a chance.”

Rhett blinked in surprise. He had _not_ expected that, but he also had no idea what his dad meant. “A chance to… what?”

“A chance to do… what you’re doing.” Rhett’s dad waved a hand vaguely.

Rhett crossed his arms over his chest, annoyed that his dad wouldn’t come out and say it. “I’m boyfriends with Link.”

“If that’s what you want to call it,” his dad said, obviously uncomfortable. “But you made some good points the other night.”

“What points?” _Say it say it say it._

Rhett’s dad pursed his lips. “You’ve always been a good kid.”

Rhett was annoyed with himself at how good that made him feel. “I know.”

“And Link seems like a good kid, too.”

“He is.” Hopefully his parents would never find out about Link’s ex Kelsey.

“So we’re going to let--”

“Let!” Rhett exclaimed. “You’re not going to _let_ me do anything. I’m an adult.” _At least legally._

“We could stop paying for your college.”

“I could get student loans.”

“You’d need our tax information for that.”

They glared at each other. His dad looked away first, shocking Rhett. He tried to hide his surprise.

“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, we are willing to allow you to continue this relationship for now. You will keep your grades up, you will attend all your classes, you will keep your basketball scholarship, and you will not get in trouble, is that understood?”

Rhett didn’t bother telling him that he’d already had this conversation with his mom. “Yes.”

“And I want to be clear, Rhett. You are on thin ice. One mistake…” Rhett’s dad shook a finger at him. “Choosing to be in a homosexual relationship is going to make everything harder for you in the future. If it were up to me, you would not be continuing this relationship, for your own good.”

“So why…?”

“Your mother insisted.” He sniffed. “Seems like that conversation with Chuck Neal got under her skin.”

Rhett was going to buy Chuck a fruit basket, or maybe a pizza. “So that’s it?”

“Yes. And I don’t appreciate that attitude, young man.”

Rhett shrugged and stood up. His dad had always been strict and Rhett had always been a little scared of him, but that was gone now. As long as his mom was on his side, his dad’s threats were empty.

He opened the door and paused before walking out. “Hey, dad?”

“Yes?”

“There’s one benefit to me dating a guy that I bet you haven’t considered.”

His dad frowned. “What?”

“I can’t get him pregnant.” Rhett burst into laughter at the look on his dad’s face, and ran out of the office, swinging the door shut behind him.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Rhett let himself in with Chuck’s spare key. The keychain was one of those souvenir ones with a beach scene on one side and _CHARLES_ in bold letters on the other. Chuck had no idea where it was from or which Charles it had been bought for.

Link was sprawled out on the sectional, reading, with Rhett’s pillows under his head. The sheets and blankets were folded up neatly on the coffee table. Rhett collapsed onto the couch next to Link’s feet and leaned his head back.

“How’d it go?” Link asked. Rhett groaned in response.

Link set his Kindle down and crawled into Rhett’s lap, managing to not elbow him in the ribs for one. He draped his arms over Rhett’s shoulders, and Rhett pulled him close and buried his head in the crook of Link’s neck. He smelled like fabric softener and shampoo and the clean skin smell that was _Link_. It was intensely comforting. Rhett took a few shuddery breaths.

“He’s such an asshole,” Rhett mumbled into Link’s shoulder after pulling himself together.

“I know.” Link ran his fingers through the short hair on Rhett’s nape.

“He’s gonna let us stay together, though. For now, anyway.”

Link snorted. “Oh, is that his decision?”

“Not really,” Rhett said with a sigh. “But he’s still gonna pay for school as long as I keep up my GPA and do well in basketball and don’t get in trouble or just decides not to for whatever bullshit reason he comes up with. One strike, and I’m out.”

“Mmm,” Link said thoughtfully. “I think you can do it.”

“I know I can do it. I’m gonna do it. I just don’t like my dad thinking he’s in charge.”

“I feel that.” Link pushed Rhett back and kissed him. “Chuck’s gone for the evening.”

“He is?” Rhett hadn’t noticed that the truck was gone, but his mind had been elsewhere.

“Yeah, he had to go fill in at a poker game ‘cause someone was sick or something. Anyway…” Link turned and swung a leg over Rhett’s lap, straddling him. “I was wondering if maybe you’d like to celebrate your good fortune?”

“Like graduation night?”

“No, like…” Link moved his hips forward in a way that made Rhett’s eyes go wide as all his blood rushed below his waist.

“Oh. Yeah. Okay.” Rhett slid his hands up Link’s sides, under his shirt. “How far…?”

“Um.” Link flushed and made a jerking off motion. “That far?”

Rhett pulled him closer. “You’re awfully shy for someone who’s definitely not a virgin.”

“Shut up.” Link did the hip thing again, and this time Rhett pushed up against him. “Whoa. Wanna go upstairs?”

“Yeah.” Link jumped off his lap and ran up the stairs, Rhett in hot pursuit.


	24. Chapter 24

It turned out that a twin bed was alright for jerking off on each other, but not for cuddling afterwards.

“How do you sleep in this thing?” Rhett complained. Link was practically on top of him and he was still getting pushed off the bed.

Link laughed. “Better get used to it. The dorm has twin beds.”

“Ugh. I gotta move.” Rhett untangled his limbs from Link’s and sat up. Link took advantage of the extra room to stretch out luxuriously. He was just as beautiful naked as Rhett had suspected, all lean muscle and bony angles. The only soft, round part of him was his butt.

Rhett was still surprised at some of the things he found attractive about Link. Link was objectively good looking, so it wasn’t unexpected that Rhett thought he was beautiful. The body hair, though, that was unexpected. Link had a lot of it. It was soft and dark and Rhett couldn’t keep his hands off it (well, hand. His other hand had been firmly on his cock). 

He was also surprised at how attractive Link found _him_. Rhett still didn’t feel confident in his body, but Link was vocal and explicit about how hot Rhett was. Long legs, toned arms, pretty eyes... it was bewildering, but Rhett thought he could get into it, given some more time. Maybe he’d even start to believe it.

Link grabbed his phone off the bedside table and checked the time. “We better get dressed.”

“And you better comb your hair,” Rhett said. The longer Link’s hair got, the wilder it became. Occasionally he’d try to tame it with some pomade, but for the most part, he let it do what it wanted. 

“Yeah?” Link sat up and ran his fingers through his hair, to no effect. He leaned over and snagged his clothes off the floor. “So did you like that?”

Rhett pulled his shirt over his head. “Are you kidding? That was amazing.”

Link gave him one of his brilliant crooked smiles. He leaned over and kissed Rhett. “C’mon, I’ll make your bed.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Over the next few days, Rhett made several trips to his parents’ house to pack up his stuff while they were at work. It was easier that way, especially since he’d begun thinking about moving out entirely. He couldn’t imagine living in a place where Link wasn’t welcome (his dad had made that clear over text after their serious conversation). It really depended on how things went when he came home for breaks. Chuck said that Rhett was welcome to crash on his couch anytime, but Rhett wanted to try improving his relationship with his parents first.

Things were going well with his mom, at least. Rhett went over for dinner a couple days after his dad’s serious chat, and he brought her the wooden spoon he’d carved with Chuck. She was thrilled and delighted, and gave Rhett a big hug. Things weren’t the same between them, and never would be, but Rhett was hopeful for the future.

His dad, on the other hand… sitting across the dinner table from him felt like an interrogation. Rhett had to stay on his toes and not mention Link too much, which was difficult because they spent so much time together now. It was exhausting.

When Rhett went back to Chuck’s that night, Link made him a cup of tea and they sat on the sectional and talked about it. The living room, with its ancient TV and dated decor, now felt cozy and comforting to Rhett.

“... and it’s just like, I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it now. It’s all up to them,” Rhett concluded, and drained his mug. Link sat quietly, bony legs folded up underneath him, and rested his head on Rhett’s shoulder.

“Can… can I ask you a question?” he said hesitantly.

“Of course,” Rhett replied.

“And you have to be honest.”

“I’m always honest with you,” Rhett said. “You know that.”

“Okay.” Link took a deep breath. “If you could, would you… would you take it back? Like, do you regret choosing me?”

“No.” Rhett’s answer was immediate. He wrapped his arms around Link. “Absolutely not.”

Link leaned against him. “It’s just… your life is all fucked up because of me.”

“No, it’s because my parents are assholes.” Rhett sighed. “Look, if it wasn’t you, it would have been something else. Quitting basketball, changing my major to something they don’t approve of, whatever. I’ve always been the good son, you know? But I met you, and you’ve done so much to take control of your own life, it sort of made me think about what _I_ want. I wasn’t really planning on doing it so soon, but…” he shrugged. “Whatcha gonna do?”

“Rhett.” Link’s voice was choked with tears. “God, Rhett. I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.” Rhett kissed the top of Link’s head. “You make me better.”

“You make _me_ better.” Link climbed into his lap and they sat there silently, just taking comfort in each other, until they heard Chuck’s truck in the driveway.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Rhett knew what happened to frozen custard in the heat of a North Carolinian summer, which is why he’d ordered a cherry chocolate concrete: chocolate syrup and chopped maraschino cherries blended with custard and topped with hot fudge and another cherry. It started out thick enough to require a spoon, but pretty soon it would go through a straw.

Link did not have frozen custard experience, which is why he ordered a double scoop in a waffle cone, coated in chocolate shell. The custard had started melting immediately and dribbled out the bottom of the cone. Link was trying his best (and failing) to keep it from making a huge mess.

Rhett watched with amusement as Link licked melting custard at the top of the cone and a fat drop grew at the bottom of the cone, rolled down Link’s forearm, and splattered onto his shorts. He burst into laughter at Link’s screech of dismay.

Link glared at him. “Why’d you let me order this?” he mumbled as he slurped melted custard from the bottom of the cone.

“You were just so excited about that chocolate shell, man.” Rhett took a bite of his concrete. “I wasn’t about to burst your bubble.”

“Well, it’s busted now.” By the time Link finished his cone, he had custard and chocolate smeared all over both hands, down one arm, on his shirt and shorts, and his face.

“You got some chocolate right here.” Rhett touched the corner of his mouth. Link wiped at it with one of his napkins.

“Did I get it?”

“Nope. Hold still.” Rhett took a napkin and carefully cleaned the chocolate off Link’s face.

“Thanks.” Link gathered up all the dirty napkins and wadded them up. “I’m gonna go wash my hands inside.”

“Okay.” Rhett watched as Link disappeared into the custard shop. It was tiny, with no indoor seating, so Rhett found a little table under a tree. He was finishing the last bit of his concrete when he heard someone call his name.

“Rhett! Hey!”

Rhett turned to see Amanda B walking over to him. Her fire engine red hair was pulled up in a messy bun, and she had a big, excited grin on her face. She pulled out a chair and sat across from him. “I thought you would have left already.”

“No, I’m leaving tomorrow morning.” Rhett’s car was packed and ready to go. The things he couldn’t fit in his car (mostly the mini fridge) were in Chuck’s truck. His parents insisted on coming for orientation, which Rhett didn’t think was unreasonable. That didn’t mean he had to like it, though.

“Who was sitting with you?” Amanda B asked.

“You remember Link?” Rhett said. “The new kid at the end of the year.”

Amanda B rested her cheek on her hand and sighed wistfully. “The dreamy one who didn’t like anybody.”

Rhett snorted at that. It was pretty accurate. “Yeah. We got to be friends after graduation.”

“Oh?” She raised a meticulously penciled eyebrow. “That looked a little more than just friendly.”

Rhett froze. “Amanda, don’t…”

Amanda B’s eyes grew wide. “No way!”

“Way,” Rhett admitted. “But please don’t go telling everyone, okay? It’s still pretty new.”

“Okay.” She sat back and blinked a few times. “How’d your parents take that?”

“Not well. I… oh, hey Link.”

Link stood uncertainly off to the side. He’d cleaned up and had a big wet spot on his bright graphic t-shirt. Rhett could tell he wasn’t sure how to react to Amanda B’s presence.

“Hey,” Amanda B greeted him.

“Hi.” Link pulled out a chair and sat down. He had the sort of folded in on himself look that Rhett recognized from school. It was what he did around people he didn’t know if he could trust (like Rhett’s parents).

Amanda B didn’t bring up their relationship, which surprised Rhett. That was more like the old Amanda B, before Amanda M showed up, and she was just plain Amanda. Amanda B was always better company when Amanda M wasn’t around.

They sat and chatted for a while. It wasn’t quite small talk, but it wasn’t anything groundbreaking, either. Amanda B asked what they’d been up to (Link perked up a little when they talked about metal detecting), and Rhett asked how her road trip with Amanda M was (awesome!).

“Well, speak of the devil!” Amanda B waved at someone behind Rhett. He turned and saw Amanda M walking in from the parking lot. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Link stiffen up. Considering that Amanda M had called him a school shooter, Rhett didn’t blame him.

“Sup, losers?” she greeted them as she flung herself into the last empty chair. Rhett raised his hand in greeting.

“Oooh, guess what?” Amanda B said.

“What?”

“These two--” Amanda B thrust two fingers towards Rhett and Link, “--are an _item_.”

“Ha!” Amanda M whacked Amanda B’s arm with the back of her hand. “I told you Rhett had a crush on him!” She turned to Rhett. “I never would have guessed you were gay before that.”

“I…” Rhett’s face grew hot. “I’m not… I don’t think…” He glanced over at Link to see how he was taking this. Link’s expression was studiously neutral, but his shoulders were drawn in and he was tense as a wire.

“Whatever.” Amanda M dismissed him with a wave of her hand before pointing at Link. “You, though… you set off my gaydar like crazy.”

Link stared at her for a second. He pushed his chair back abruptly, metal legs scraping across the brick patio, and walked off towards the parking lot without a word.

Rhett glanced at the Amandas, turned his head to watch Link walk away, and then looked back at the Amandas. “Um, can you throw this away for me?” He put his empty concrete cup in front of Amanda B, who was looking at him with a bemused expression. “I gotta go.”

He heard them calling him to come back, but Rhett ran after Link without looking back.


	25. Chapter 25

“Hey.” Rhett caught up with Link and touched his shoulder. “You okay?” 

Link turned and pushed his sunglasses up onto the top of his head, so he looked at Rhett with blue eyes instead of blue mirrors, and scowled. “Why would you tell Amanda Baker we were dating?”

“I didn’t!” Rhett protested. “She saw me wipe your face and guessed.”

“Oh.” Link’s expression cleared and he flipped his glasses back down. “Maybe we shouldn't do stuff like that.”

Rhett unlocked the car and climbed in. “I’m not going through all this with my parents just to hide,” he said as he buckled his seat belt. He looked over at Link. “Unless you want to?” 

“Nah.” Link shook his head as he buckled up. “I don’t think I could even if I wanted to.”

“Same.” Rhett pulled out of the parking lot. “New life starts tomorrow.”

Link laughed. “It’s gonna be the same and you know it.”

“No, _we’re_ gonna be the same,” Rhett said. “New people, new places.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” Link was looking out the window, but Rhett could tell he was smiling from his voice. “Gonna miss Chuck, though.”

“It’s not that far away. We can come back on the weekend sometimes.”

“‘We’?” Link sounded delighted. Rhett glanced over to see a mischievous grin on his face. “You’re gonna come visit Chuck with me?”

“How else are you getting home? You don’t have a car.” Rhett grinned at the disgusted noise Link made. “I mean, sure, I’ll put in an appearance with my parents, but I’m not staying there unless they change their tune and apologize.”

“Mmm.” Link resumed staring out the window, and they drove the rest of the way home in companionable silence.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

There were a number of downsides to crashing on Chuck’s couch. One of them was that Rhett had to wait for Chuck to finish watching his baseball game before he could set up his bed. If it was a West Coast that went into extra innings, it could get pretty late.

The night before they left for school was one of those nights. The ball game was Royals at Mariners, currently in a tenth inning pitchers’ duel that had no sign of stopping. Rhett was a basketball guy. He’d learned a lot about baseball over the past ten days, but he didn’t actually care about any of it, so instead he found himself lounging on the floor in Link’s room.

The blue shag carpet was surprisingly comfortable. Rhett had a pillow under his head and an empty bottle of Moxie at his side. Other than the run-in with the Amandas, it had been a good day. He was a little nervous about moving tomorrow, but overall he thought it would be a good thing.

Rhett was dozing off when Link leaned off the bed and touched his shoulder. “Hey, Rhett.”

“Mmph,” Rhett mumbled blearily. 

Link shook his shoulder again. “Rhett, wake up.”

Rhett lifted an eyelid and squinted up at him. “What?”

“Can you come up here? I need to talk to you.” Link’s voice was so quiet and wavery that it woke Rhett up right away.

“Yeah, hang on.” Rhett climbed into the tiny bed and ended up as the big spoon with his back to the wall. It was the most comfortable way for them both to fit, and it had the added bonus of making it difficult for Link to gouge Rhett with his bony joints. “What’s going on?”

Link took a shuddery breath. He was tense and withdrawn in a way that Rhett was familiar with. “I’m… not scared, really. Apprehensive?”

“About what?” Rhett figured it was probably something about starting college. He certainly had his own worries about it. He kissed the back of Link’s head. 

“Just… a lot of couples break up when they go to college. And this is so new…”

“Oh, Link.” Rhett put an arm around Link’s middle and pulled him closer. “You know I meant it when I said I’d choose you every time?”

Link sighed. “Yeah, but…”

“And you’d choose me?”

“ _Duh_.”

Rhett chuckled at Link’s reaction. He let go of Link’s middle and started letting his hand wander along Link’s body. Hip to thigh and back up to hip to stomach to chest and back down… “Look, I can’t tell the future, but I _can_ tell you that I love you. Link, I love you so much. You’re the most important person in my life, and I promise that I’ll choose you every time.”

Link made a little noise that might have been either a laugh or a sob. “I love you, Rhett.”

“Mmhm.” Rhett kissed the back of his head again and slid his hand under Link’s shirt. It was too small for him, so Rhett couldn’t get his hand very far up towards LInk’s chest. He moved his hand down instead and stroked the hair under Link’s navel.

Link squirmed. “That tickles.”

“Sorry.” Rhett stilled his hand and laid it flat on Link’s belly. He was half hard. Having Link pressed completely against him was already enticing enough. Touching him just added fuel to the fire. Rhett slid his hand down and just barely slid his pinky under the elastic of Link’s underwear. It reminded him of the first move he made on Link, hooking their pinkies together as they watched _Jaws_. “Can I…?”

Link was still tense, but now it was anticipatory instead of apprehensive. He wiggled against Rhett, which just made him harder. “Yeah,” he sighed. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

Rhett hoped the baseball game was going into the twelfth inning. He put his hand over Link’s crotch and stroked it through the soft fabric. It was the first time he’d touched Link this way, and as soon as he did, Rhett immediately became rock hard. He pushed his hips forward to rub himself on Link, who let out a little moan.

“Rhett, please…”

“Patience. I wanna take my time.” Rhett let his hand wander some more, cock to balls to inner thigh. By the time he got back up to Link’s waist, Link was a shivery, pleading, whimpering mess. Rhett rubbed his thumb across the wet spot on Link’s underwear. “Wow.”

“ _Please_ , Rhett. I’m not… I can’t…”

“You’re gonna have to be quiet,” Rhett warned. He was starting to realize that Link was very, very vocal while having relations.

“I know.” Link brought a hand up to his mouth. “I will.”

“Mm, if you say so.” Rhett reached into Link’s underwear and grabbed his cock. Link immediately stuffed the ball of his hand into his mouth as he moaned. It came out muffled and garbled. “God, Link. This is nice.”

Link wasn’t thick, but he was long enough that Rhett was honestly a little intimidated. He pumped Link in his hand, enjoying the heat and the hardness under his soft skin. “When I jerk off,” Rhett said, “I like to do this.” He rubbed his thumb over the head of Link’s cock, which had an immediate reaction. Link’s entire body shuddered, and he mumbled something into his hand that might have been _I like it too_.

Rhett continued to stroke Link the way he stroked himself. He wasn’t neglecting himself, either. Rhett had his dick lined up with Link’s ass crack, and he thrust his hips in time with the strokes of his hand. He began to understand how this worked. For the first time, he could really imagine himself fucking Link for real.

It didn’t take Link long to cum. The way his body moved and the noise he made (muffled as it was) almost pushed Rhett over the edge. He kept rubbing himself against Link’s ass as Link started to relax.

“Wait, wait.” Link rolled over to face Rhett. “I wanna… I wanna finish you.”

“Okay.” Link could do anything he wanted, as far as Rhett was concerned, and apparently what he wanted to do was thrust his hand into Rhett’s underwear. He grabbed Rhett’s cock and began stroking it. At the same time, he kissed and licked Rhett’s neck.

It was sensory overload. Rhett’s eyes rolled back in his head as he came. It was better than any orgasm he’d ever given himself. No wonder people liked having sex.

They lay there on the little bed for a few minutes, arms and legs tangled up and cum smeared on their bodies and clothes.

Link sighed in contentment. “That was amazing.”

“Holy shit.”

“We better get cleaned up before Chuck comes up here.” Link pulled himself up to kiss Rhett, but pulled back as soon as their tongues touched. “Bleah!”

“What?” Rhett asked in bewilderment. 

“You taste like that cough syrup soda!” 

Rhett laughed as Link climbed off the bed. “You know you love it.”

Link rolled his eyes and leaned over to kiss Rhett’s forehead without a word.


	26. Chapter 26

The baseball game was over and Chuck had gone up to his room. Rhett was making the couch into his bed when he heard footsteps on the stairs. It was Link, wearing fresh underwear and a clean shirt. He stood at the bottom of the stairs. “Hey.”

Rhett straightened up. “What’s up?”

“I wanna give you something.” Link walked over and held out his clenched hand. He opened his fingers and there, on his palm, lay a silver ring.

Rhett picked it up and inspected it. The ring was big enough that it would probably fit his thick fingers (Rhett tried on Link’s gold signet ring once. He could only fit it halfway down his pinky) and the wide band was engraved with arrows. Rhett thought he recognized it.

“This is from the swimming hole, right?” he asked as he tried it on different fingers.

“Yeah. I cleaned it up and polished it,” Link said. He watched Rhett try on the ring. “You don’t have to wear it. I just wanted you to have it.”

The silver ring fit best on Rhett’s right pointer finger. He held out his hand and admired it. “Why?”

“Because we’re not gonna be able to spend as much time together, and we’re gonna meet new people and all that. So I just wanted you to have something to hold on to.” Link shrugged.

“Like a promise ring?”

Link frowned. “I don’t know what that is.”

“Um, it’s when you’re dating, and really serious, but not like, _engaged_ serious,” Rhett said. There were usually a lot of purity culture strings attached, but Rhett deliberately chose to leave them out.

“Oh. Then yeah, I guess it’s a promise ring.”

“C’mere.” Rhett pulled Link into a hug. “I love it. I’m gonna wear it every day. I wish I had one to give you.”

Link wiggled around and pulled his right hand out. He held it up for Rhett to see. Instead of his gold signet ring, he wore a silver band with a twisted rope pattern. “I found this the same day.”

“God, I love you.” Rhett pulled him in for a kiss. “We better go to sleep, though. Big day tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” Link stood on his tiptoes to kiss Rhett. “Goodnight. I love you.”

“Sweet dreams.” There was one final kiss, and Link vanished up the stairs. Rhett finished making his bed and lay down, smiling as he touched the ring on his finger.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“What’d you do to your hand?” Chuck asked.

Link looked down at it. There was a reddish semicircle at the base of his thumb that promised to become a dark bruise. “Rhett slammed the car door on it yesterday.” Rhett, behind Chuck, flipped Link off.

Chuck shook his head and headed towards his truck. “You boys need to be more careful.” 

Link winked at Rhett, who made a face. “Asshole.”

“It’s not like I could tell him the truth!”

Rhett rolled his eyes. “Anyway. You ready to go?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” All of their things were packed into Rhett’s car and Chuck’s truck. Link peered into Rhett’s crammed rear seat. “If we forgot anything, it’s not even an hour to get back here. And they have a Target there, I bet.”

“That’s not really what I meant,” Rhett said. 

In the driveway, Chuck started his truck. “Link!”

Link turned around and yelled. “Just a second.” He turned back to Rhett. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

Chuck honked his horn. “Charles Lincoln!”

“Gotta go.” Link stood on his tiptoes to kiss Rhett. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.” Rhett gave him a hug. “See you later.”

“Bye!” Link ran off to the truck. Rhett waited until they drove off before heading out himself.

A few days ago, they’d had a long discussion at the swimming hole where they decided that they’d take the first day separately in order to get to know the other people in their dorm. Link thought it was important that they establish themselves as individuals. Rhett agreed, less because he shared Link’s feelings and more because he’d agree to whatever Link wanted. The plan was to go through all the move in (once Rhett got his things out of Chuck’s truck) on the first day and orientation on the second apart, and then meet up on the second evening.

The only real problem Rhett had with this plan was that it meant his parents would be there helping him move in, rather than Chuck and Link, who were waiting for him when he pulled up outside of his dorm. They quickly unloaded his fridge before hurrying off to Link’s dorm.

There wasn’t much parking by the dorm, so Rhett began unloading his car and began piling bags and boxes around the fridge. Hopefully his parents would show up soon so he didn’t have to leave it unattended. 

He looked around as he worked. There were people everywhere hurrying about, kids and parents and college employees. His dorm was one of the older ones, four stories of red brick and sandstone, surrounded by mature trees.

“Rhett!” He turned and saw his mom waving out the window of his dad’s car, idling in the middle of the street. He waved back and she got out of the car. “Hi, honey!”

“Hi, mom.” Rhett hugged her tightly. “Can you watch my stuff for a minute while I find somewhere to park?”

“Of course, honey.”

Finding a parking space was easier said than done, especially when one was limited to the first year lots, which were currently clogged up with first year parents. It took nearly twenty minutes to find a spot and walk back to the dorm. By that time, Rhett’s dad had joined his mom near Rhett’s pile of stuff. His stomach did an anxious little flip flop. It always did when he saw his dad now.

“Hi, dad.” Rhett didn’t hug his dad. That was something that had stopped a while ago, although Rhett couldn’t pinpoint exactly when. Maybe when he was fourteen or fifteen. The thought made him sad.

His dad whacked the top of the fridge. “Ready to take this thing in?”

“Yeah.” It turned out that having an activity to do made spending time with his dad much more tolerable. As they wrestled the fridge into the little common area of the suite, the door opened and the blondest person Rhett had ever seen came in. His hair was a true platinum blond and his eyebrows and eyelashes were nearly invisible.

“Oh, hey. You must be Rhett,” he said, and held out his hand. “I’m Mark.”

Rhett shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“You’ll have to take that room.” Mark pointed behind Rhett. “Harjeet and I already took the others.”

“That’s fine.” Rhett figured they were all about the same, anyway. He opened the door and looked inside. It was a very small room, containing a wooden desk, chair, and dresser, and a metal framed bed. He made a face at the bed. Link was right. Twin beds in the dorm.

The walls were a semigloss cream color that made Rhett think of elementary school classroom walls, and there was a single window with a radiator underneath. The floor was blue linoleum, and there was a mirror on the closet door. That was about it. 

Rhett crossed to the window and looked out. This was where he thought he’d be able to see Link’s room, but there was a big leafy tree in the way.

“Nicer than when I was in college,” Rhett’s dad said. Rhett jumped. He hadn’t heard his footsteps. “Course, I was in the basement and my window looked out into a window well. Drunks would pee in it sometimes.”

“Gross, dad.” Rhett headed towards the door. “Let’s go get the rest of the stuff.”

Rhett’s mom was still outside guarding his stuff, but now she was talking to a woman that Rhett would bet good money was Mark’s mom. She had the same silvery white hair, but some magic cosmetics had given her eyebrows and eyelashes. Rhett grinned. His mom could make friends with anyone.

It took thirty minutes to bring in all of Rhett’s stuff. In that time, his dad told him several more dorm stories (greased watermelon in the toilet, decorating for Christmas and then leaving the lights up for the rest of the year, sliding a panel of ice made in a cookie sheet under someone’s door so they’d wake up to a wet floor) and Link didn’t come up at all. On one hand, it was a relief to not have the subject hanging over them, but on the other, it rankled Rhett that they had to pretend Link didn’t exist in order to have a civil conversation.

They went back outside to find his mom. Predictably, she was chatting happily with a few other parents. “C’mon, hon,” Rhett’s dad said. “We have that presentation to go to.”

Rhett smiled to himself. He’d looked at the orientation schedule for parents, and couldn’t remember the real title of this meeting, but it was basically “Don’t Be A Helicopter Parent”. Whatever flaws his parents had, at least that wasn’t one of them.

They made a plan to meet up for dinner after parent orientation, and Rhett went back inside to deal with the stuff he’d dumped all over the floor of his room. Mark was there, too, doing the same, and a little while later the third roommate, Harjeet, showed up. He didn’t have much beyond a couple suitcases, so he took control of setting up the common area.

Rhett thought they seemed like pretty okay guys so far. Harjeet was laid back, with a sharp sense of humor, and Mark was what Rhett mentally categorized as “a solid bro-type”. Harjeet ended up coming to dinner with Rhett and his parents because he was alone at school. He got on well with them. It was a nice dinner. Rhett hugged his parents goodbye after that, even his dad, and watched as they drove off. He was on his own now.

Then he went inside with Harjeet to attend their floor’s “getting to know each other” party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The basement dorm with the window well that drunk guys peed into was where I lived my first year at college. Good times.


	27. Chapter 27

Rhett opened his eyes and glanced around, confused for a moment, before remembering that he was finally in the dorms. He picked up his phone to check the time. There was a text from Link, saying he missed Rhett, and a few from his mom, wanting to make sure Rhett was having fun and behaving himself. He rolled his eyes and texted her back with some bland reassurances.

Link got a more detailed text. Rhett missed him, too, but his roommates were nice and everything was going well, and anyway what should they do tonight? There was no answer. Link was probably still asleep, but Rhett was ready to start his day. He got up and dressed and walked over to the dining hall.

For someone who liked to eat, the dining hall was a little slice of heaven. Rhett had never seen so many food options in one place. There was a station where you could get eggs cooked to order, a little buffet with all the pastries and fruits of a continental breakfast, dispensers full of cereal (that would be Link’s favorite), make-your-own-waffles… that wasn’t even all of it. Rhett understood how people could gain the freshman fifteen so easily.

The rest of the day was filled with presentations (one was basically “Don’t Let Your Parents Helicopter You,” which amused Rhett), meet and greets, activity fairs, and tours. It was honestly more information than Rhett could keep track of. He let it pass over him, confident that he’d be able to look everything up later.

One thing that he did take with him, though, was a couple condoms from the “Help Yourself!” bowl at the health center’s booth. Rhett knew that there was no reason to feel awkward about it, that they were there for the taking, and that even if the woman behind the table had been paying attention, she wouldn’t have minded. His face was still bright read, though, and he hurried away as he stuffed the condoms down into his pocket.

After dinner, which was even more astonishing than breakfast or lunch, Mark and Harjeet piled into Rhett’s car and they drove off to Target. The plan was just to pick up a few items, but they got sidetracked in the snack section. Harjeet had never had American snacks, and Mark and Rhett wanted to share their favorites.

“This looks like dog treats,” Harjeet said, inspecting a package of jerky.

Rhett laughed. “Yeah, it does.”

“My dad actually ate a dog treat once because he thought it was jerky,” Mark added. “He said it was really salty.”

“And it’s not cooked?” He flipped it over and read the ingredients. “Oh, it’s beef. I can’t eat this.” Harjeet handed it back to Rhett.

“Is turkey okay? They have turkey jerky.” Harjeet nodded, so Rhett threw the turkey jerky into the cart. They got Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Cool Ranch Doritos, Double Stuf Oreos, a pint of Cherry Garcia, Lucky Charms, a bunch of different kinds of soda, and Pop Rocks. Target didn’t sell Moxie, of course, but Rhett could always order some from Amazon.

Back on campus, Rhett and his roommates were walking back to the dorm with their purchases when he caught sight of Link. He was with a group of people, presumably his floormates, talking animatedly and waving his hands as he walked. Rhett smiled to himself, remembering how Link acted when they met--withdrawn, silent, shut off. This was the _real_ Link, now.

Link caught sight of Rhett and his face lit up. He said something to one of the people he was with, who nodded, and headed towards Rhett.

“Hey, I’ll be up in a minute, okay?” Rhett said to Mark and Harjeet.

“Sure thing, man.”

Rhett walked across the grass to meet Link, who put his arms around Rhett’s neck. “Hi,” he whispered, staring into Rhett’s eyes with a little smile.

“Hi,” Rhett answered. “Um--” He extricated himself and put down his shopping bags before pulling Link close again. “That’s better.”

“Mmhm.” Link stood on his tiptoes and gave Rhett a quick kiss, right there in broad daylight, where everyone could see. It honestly made Rhett a little dizzy, how much had changed in so little time. “What are you up to?”

“American snacks taste test,” Rhett said. “Harjeet has a lot to learn.”

Link snorted. “You’re gonna make him try Moxie, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely!” Rhett answered. “Have to order it online, though.”

Link rolled his eyes. Rhett kissed his forehead.

“What are you up to? You wanna eat snacks with us?”

“That sounds cool, but I told my floormates I’d watch a movie with them,” Link said. “Maybe next time? There’s lots of American junk food.”

Rhett laughed. “That’s for sure. So how about you text me when your movie’s done and I’ll come over?”

“Mm, sounds nice.” Link kissed his neck with just the tiniest hint of tongue, and all of Rhett’s blood immediately rushed to his crotch. Link laughed at the dumbfounded look on his face. “I’ll see you in a couple hours, okay? Have fun.”

“Okay. Love you.” Rhett kissed him again.

“Love you, too.” And with that, Link headed off to his dorm. Rhett collected his shopping and his thoughts before heading off to his own.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The door to their suite was open, and Mark and Harjeet were sitting on the floor with all the snacks spread out around them. The bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos was open between them.

“I don’t like them, but I can’t stop eating them?” Harjeet said as he pulled out another chip. His fingers were already stained red. 

“Pretty much.” Mark grabbed the Doritos and opened the bag. “Try these, they’re the same sort of thing.”

Harjeet took a Dorito with a skeptical expression, which turned to delight when he saw Rhett enter. “Rhett!”

“Yeah?” Rhett put his bags down.

“We haven’t even been here a full day and already you have a boyfriend?” Harjeet waggled his eyebrows. 

Rhett had been worried about this, how his roommates would react when they found out about Link. Neither one seemed upset, though, so he just dove in. “Um, yeah.”

Harjeet gave him a big goofy grin and two thumbs up, while Mark made an incredibly obnoxious wolf whistle noise and pumped his fist. “Yeah, boiiii!”

Rhett dropped his head into his hands.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Link’s dorm was nicer and newer than Rhett’s, but his room was just as small. “I was gonna loft the bed so I’d have more room, but, uh, I don’t think we’d both fit in it, that close to the ceiling,” he explained.

“That’s good, ‘cause I _really_ don’t like heights,” Rhett said.

Link snickered. “Really?”

Rhett whacked Link’s arm with the back of his hand. “Shut up.” Link whacked him back and dodged Rhett’s next grab.

“Hey, Chuck gave me something to give to you. Hang on, let me find it.” Link knelt by the pile of belongings next to his desk and poked around for a moment. “Here!” He handed a saltine box closed with masking tape over to Rhett.

“It’s _heavy_!” Rhett exclaimed as he took the box. “What the hell’s in here?” Link shrugged as Rhett peeled off the tape and folded back the flaps. He pulled out a wad of crumpled newspaper and then a small bundle of newspaper. Rhett tore it open. It was a set of wood carving knives.

“Nice,” Link said. “What else?”

“Um.” Rhett upended the box. Half a dozen blocks of various types of wood clattered onto Link’s bed, along with a folded piece of paper. He picked up the note and stared at it for a moment before wiping his eyes and handing it to Link.

“‘Rhett’,” Link read out loud. “‘Make something for your dad. I think he’ll come around, but even if he don’t, I’m still proud of you.’” He lowered the note. “Wow.”

“Yeah.” Rhett packed the blocks back into the cracker box. He recognized one as maple and thought another was oak, but the rest were a mystery. “Your grandpa’s pretty awesome.”

“I know. I really lucked out there, since everyone else I’m related to sucks.” Link lay back on the bed, a strange look coming over his face.

Rhett lay next to him. “What’s that face for?”

“Just… if Kelsey actually had the baby, how would it have turned out? Like, as a person, I mean. It’s not like I have any idea how to be a dad.”

“No, but you have a pretty good idea of what _not_ to do,” Rhett pointed out.

Link burst into laughter, and the solemn mood between them vanished. “True, true.” He rolled over so that he could lay on Rhett’s chest. “So what do you want to do tonight?”

“Oh.” Rhett put his arms around Link. He could already tell his face was turning red. “So, um, I don’t know if you’re ready, or even if you want to, but I know I want to, and I think I’m ready…”

Link lifted his head off Rhett’s chest and looked at him. “Are you asking if I want to have sex?”

“Uh, yeah. I got--” Rhett squirmed around until he was able to get his hand in his pocket to pull out his health center condoms. “Some supplies?”

“Ha!” Link leaned over Rhett to open his desk drawer and pulled out a box of condoms. “Me, too. Got ‘em at the gas station when Chuck stopped for gas on the way up here.”

“I don’t really know how this works,” Rhett admitted. “Like, how do you decide who does what? Flip a coin? ‘Cause either way sounds pretty good, and I have that wheat ear penny in my pocket.”

Link snickered and threw a leg over Rhett, straddling him. “Rhett, we have all the time in the world to figure this out.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Rhett put his hands on Link’s waist, under his shirt. “Can we start now, though?”

Link smiled and leaned over to kiss him, taking their first step into their new life.

**Author's Note:**

> @pinecontents on tumblr


End file.
